I need to remind myself of this more often… Thanks. 
This is solid advice for all.
@zlykalafior hope you are taking notes
Everything you say might be true, but it is irrelevant to the OP’s issue.
Again, not every player is at the same place in his/her bass journey. What might be simple for one to play could very well be very challenging for another.
The point is: @zlykalafior would do best to not use the current teacher. It is not a good fit.
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No, it’s not. But IMHO the actual problem is every beginner should start by learning basic playing skills and technique first before proceeding to learning specific bass lines. This is what those Hal Leonard books are for and also they way I teach when dealing with raw beginners.
Everything you’re learning in those books you can later apply to the specific songs you’re learning so none of it will ever be wasted. It’s similar to learning a sport like baseball. To learn how to hit one we all need to know and understand the basic techniques we need to know and practice first or we’ll never do it effectively.
Every one of us who ever played Little League Baseball can recall that kid who was never taught or learned those basics. He was a sure strike out every time he got up to bat. I’d suggest taking a break from the lessons until you work through all of the basics those Hal Leonard books are teaching you.
I’d also suggest by way of personal opinion that a teacher should not push a student faster than they’re comfortable with because it’s typically because something more basic has been skipped over or misunderstood. These are private lessons. You pay for them so make sure you’re being taught as you want to be taught.
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The “slap” part is not complicated, though the finger bass part is a bit more advance.
It’s a great piece to learn. From what I can see, it covers slap on the E and A string a bit of syncopated and pop, then slap fills the D strings, a couple of pass at octave slap and pop. Nothing too overwhelming. This is a great piece to learn.
@zlykalafior it seems to me like you don’t have enough songs under your belt yet. You need to go on a binge rage and play/ learn a bunch more songs before you start a private lessons. If you don’t know what you want, they don’t know what you want and they just feed you what they think you need.
You need to go through the period of wanting to play some songs you don’t have the notations or tabs for and start looking for it or figuring out the notes. You need to constantly hit a wall with your limited abilities to play the songs you want then you hit them up with specific songs or technique you need to acquire in your tool bag.
Take a step back and come up with your 50 song challenge and try to complete at least 40 before you seek a private instruction. Lesson number one, the student must be ready for the teacher.
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Both the student and teacher need to be ready for each other. Each must listen to the other and must be ready to learn from one another.
By the nature of teaching, a teacher is the more experienced and knowledgeable, and therefore should be the most responsible for the quality of the interaction with the student.
Challenging a student with material is one thing; but ignoring feedback and/or dictating an unrealistic time frame to complete assignments is quite another.
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So true!!
I find that once you get to the private lesson, either bass, mountain bike or golf in my case the “lesson” itself is pretty short, 10-15 minutes then the application may be another 10-15 minutes the rest is the student time to practice and master that “particular” skills. This past the “classroom” stage already.
The 1 hour lesson is pretty long for “our” level of playing unless it’s a babysitting session because the same lesson and skill will evolve overtime and get better as well.
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@zlykalafior hell of a first post!
Welcome to the forum! 
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Well…it takes quite a bit of coordination to get the timing right. Mark Smith’s Talking Bass site has a section called “25 Slap Groove Challenge” and I’m pretty sure this song was the inspiration behind Groove #12.
To your point, Mark places it 12 out of 25, so relatively “not that hard”, but I really struggled to get this to tempo and to play it evenly. Not sure how long it took me but way more than a week for sure. I got there, but I had already conquered the 11 challenges before that, which gave me the confidence to keep at it. So progression is important, IMO its a great challenge but a terrible “first slap song” to learn. Stick to some Flea lines like everybody does when they are starting out.
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I could not play it. Then again I haven’t slapped in five years.
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I hear ya, I can’t play the Level 42 song either, all I can play is a 30 second ditty called “slap groove #12” 
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I think that teacher might not be the best fit for you. You seem to have a general good idea on what you want to do and unless you are a total beginner, I think you should be allowed some input on what you want to do at the class.
Just the fact that you are not super excited to go there, tells you all you need to know.
Personally I show up half an hour before my practice starts, as sometimes there’s been cancellations that has allowed me to get in early and get more time with the teacher. I’m only getting half an hour atm, which is just way too little in my opinion. Time will increase later over the years though.
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This is the feeling we all want.
Life is hard. If this brings you joy, keep doing this.
Welcome to BassBuzz.
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To echo when everyone else has said, I’d ditch the current teacher.
I work as an ‘operational management consultant’, well I used to, I now sell OMC… Anyway, most of my career I’ve been focused on driving business transformation, basically by getting grown adults in businesses to do things differently. One of the concepts is ‘stretch’, pushing towards things that a just out of reach. The just is in italics for a reason. Too far out of reach and the task becomes a complete demotivator, “I can’t and never will we able to do that.” Get yourself into that position with a client, or a member of the client team, and boom, it’s all over. I know it’s sounds like consulting BS, but the reason we develop roadmaps for clients is to explain the journey we will take them, and their teams on. Yes, we can achieve (say) a 20% productivity improvement, but it’s going to take a year and there are a number of foundational elements we will need to put in place…. We break it down and incrementally move forward.
Back to bass. Having completed B2B just under a year ago, I have focused on two things, 1) learning songs, and 2) playing with others.
Learning songs: obviously, I’ve needed to learn the songs we are playing as a band, but I’ve also learnt a hell of a lot more. 110 songs over 2024, two a week, I’m probably up into the 120s now. I can’t remember all of them, but the key thing has been learning them and taking away something from each of them. My basic philosophy is the Wednesday one is easier, the Saturday one is a bit harder. But I need to be able to connect and enjoy all the songs; I won’t learn anything that I can’t connect with. I have stretch goals, songs I want to play, artists that I want to emulate, but they are stretch goals, something to aspire to and work towards, rather than something that demotivates.
The band: that’s about putting it into practice. As a group, we have agreed that we will play simple songs well, rather than trying to play complex songs, badly. We actually lost our former guitarist last summer as he was obsessed with a couple of hard songs that a) he couldn’t play, b) I couldn’t play and c) our vocalist could sing. What’s the point of that? It’s supposed to be fun!!
Anyway, when I look back at my YouTube videos, I can see progression. Easier songs, I can now pick them up and play them pretty quickly. The songs that were hard are now easier, etc.
It’s a different route compared to getting f2f teacher. Probably slower, but I’m still enjoying playing the bass, and that for me is the #1!
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Love [quote=“MikeC, post:2, topic:70973”]
forging and following your own path. Trust that.
[/quote]
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For “my” level of playing my lessons are 1 hour long when I can get there and I am not stuck blowing snow. (My driveway is 2 KM long and I only have a 33 hp tractor, small single auger) I drive about an hour to get there. The time just flies. Sometimes they go longer and sometimes we cut it short when I have been maxed out. My lessons are very laid back and I am very content with them and my teacher except for the drive.
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A little ‘realism’ goes a long way Why suck when its 100% preventable
Edit: as an addendum… its often those ‘simple’ tunes that gets the heads bobbin, the feet tappin, and the people dancing. ( ever try dancing to Rush? lol )
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You do not learn when you are pushing yourself to the absolute limit. I used to instruct high performance driving (getting a sports car around a track quickly). One of the truisms is that we learn best at 7/10 - 8/10 pace. That pushes you to force you to adapt, but is not so much that you become overwhelmed or go into panic mode. Learning does not occur when you’re overwhelmed.
It sounds like this teacher is setting goals that push you to 10/10’s. Dial it back. Relax. Have some fun.
Not every teacher is for every student. He might be a great teacher for another student, but he is clearly a poor fit for you where you are at.
And remember that you do not need to practicing with MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY!!!1! I presume that’s not why you picked up the instrument. Do what brings you joy and satisfaction.
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It shouldn’t be like that. It sounds like you have a musician rather than a teacher.
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Nicely stated, and Welcome to the Forums!
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