Welcome to badassery, @jackyounger. As Eric said, Josh is the man with a plan, and it works. Really works. All it takes to succeed is to follow his lead, have the will to learn, and practice. This is a great group of folks who are here to offer help and encouragement. Glad you’re with us.
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Welcome @jackyounger ! Glad you are here. The advice these guys give is on point.
There are a lot of us here that started late. My first bass was a 50th birthday present to myself.
This is totally do-able. you can make this happen.
Best advice i got? The only dumb questions are the ones that don’t get asked. There is no shame in not knowing something. This forum is a great place, because everyone here is genuinely interested in helping people play.
Good luck on your bass journey! Now ima go play some journey.
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Thanks everyone for the encouragement
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Hello!
I am a 70-year-old retired industrial electrician, having worked in various factories for over 40 years in that capacity. My main hobby is ham radio, which I have been doing since 1981. I mainly talk with stations in foreign countries and use Morse Code in my hobby.
Many years ago, I decided that I would learn to play the bass guitar and bought a cheap guitar from J.C. Penney (that was way back, when they sold a lot of different kinds of things!) and a Fender Bassman amplifier from a local owner. I took a couple of lessons but did not feel that I was getting anything out of the lessons. I also did not devote much time to practicing, so I gave up my ambition of playing the bass. I gave the guitar away and sold the amp to a friend of mine.
A few weeks ago, I was out running errands in my car and listening to an FM station on the way home. They played the song “Get Ready” by the group Rare Earth, which I had not heard for many years. When I got home, I went to YouTube and did a search for “Get Ready.” One of the choices was the bass cover for that song, by “djlcruze” and after listening to the song and watching him effortlessly play the bass, I just KNEW that I had to learn the bass!
I recently bought a used Fender Squier Affinity Precision Bass and also a small Fender bass amp. I have had one lesson with an instructor at one of the local
stores of a national guitar store chain. I have done just a little practicing, but everything just seems so “foreign” to me. My relatively short & fat fingers do not seem to help very much.
When I was a kid, my mother, a very accomplished organist, taught me how to play the organ and how to read music. I got to where I could play simple songs, using my left hand for the chords and my right hand for the melodies. I never stayed with the organ playing.
Now, I am here in my “older years” and trying to learn to play the bass giutar. I keep telling myself that if I was able to learn Morse Code and to get good at it, then I can learn how to play the bass. That is my “story” and please wish me luck. Thank you!
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Right on, Bradford! Glad you’re with us. Tune up, turn on, and trip out!
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Hey there low enders. I’m 57, live in a small town in Washington State, happily married, groovy grandpa of 3 heathen grandchildren, dawgfather of 4 devil dogs and owner of 2 short scale basses. I picked up my first bass towards the end of last summer after a pandemic inspired need to learn ukulele didn’t quite give me the enjoyment I thought or expected it would. Didn’t take long to realize that bass was my soul instrument. With the help of free online resources like Youtube and BigBassTabs I learned to read tabs and could play a few songs. Though I quickly realized the limitations of tabs and just memorizing songs by rote. I’m not exactly known for having the best memory as it is. So I learned what I could from Josh’s Youtube content and knew I wanted to get some more knowledge thrown at me by that guy.
So glad I went for it and signed up. In the following few months I went from “Duh… me not know what I doing” to “Holy shnikees! I can play major, minor and pentatonic scales. I have a decent grasp of how keys, scales and the Nashville numbering system work. I can find the groove of the drum beat in relation to the bass. I’m on my way to reading notation. I’m creating my own little fills and bass lines”.
Thank you Josh and Company. This was an enjoyable learning experience. I’m about to play thru the modules one more time to glean anything I may have missed or didn’t grasp at the time.
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