Mistakes When First Learning Bass?

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If he feels like chiming in, @Barney is a big fan…

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noob bassist here, gonna go over some stuff ive learnt so far.

  1. dont put pressure on your left thumb, i still struggle with this lol.

  2. another big one is not engaging with your pinky. its gonna feel weird and uncomfy, but the payoffs are HUGE.

  3. dont tackle songs that are above your skill level. for example, i tried learning some king crimson songs very early on… yeah it didnt go well lmao.

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Hah I love the spirit you took this lesson in, that’s perfect and exactly right. Imagine a beginner guitarist going straight to Fripp :rofl:

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yep. if you’re a beginner and you’re looking to get your ego crushed, attempting to play prog will do it. xD

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:100:

Good luck prog fans, but YYZ is gonna take a few years :slight_smile:

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I’m dreading the day I learn it lol

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YYZ is on my eventually list. It can’t be that hard :rofl:

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I think one of my many mistakes so far is getting stuck on something and not allowing myself the grace to revisit later. I’m thinking in terms of B2B (just a few more lessons to go)…Billie Jean, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty Pink Ribbon etc…for my skill level I spent a lot of time trying to nail the fast workout. I think my time would have been more efficient to have gotten through the medium and work on the fast over some time. I worked on Some Kind of Wonderful for so long, I may never listen to it again… :grinning: :grinning:

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Thanks for the feedback! I just use it for practice at home.

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A woodcarving accident left me with nerve damage in my right hand. My thumb and index finger are fine, everything else is (depending on the day) either numb, tingling or burning. So I resigned to the idea that I’ll only be able to pluck one-fingered using my index finger. I got pretty darn quick with just that one finger, but a few weeks ago I started intentionally double plucking by adding my middle finger while playing songs I was already well practiced with. It was difficult and felt very confusing, but after doing it daily for a few weeks it’s now happening without me even thinking about it. Some songs are so much easier to play now that I didn’t have to focus on plucking so much and that allows me to concentrate on my fretting much easier.

Don’t make excuses, look for solutions. Don’t overlook double plucking.

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I just skipped the last 2 slap lessons. I’m not excited about slapping in the first place, so the frustration that came with learning a whole new right hand technique and sucking at it really put me off. I wish Josh had spent as much time teaching picking technique as he did slap.

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lol, all the way in mod 12 and higher and higher is still kicking my butt everytime i attempt it. it’ll come to me some day…

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One of the biggest mistakes is being afraid of making mistakes which is why kids often learn things faster than adults: they aren’t afraid to fail at things.

I’m going to say that you should always work on some songs that are above your skill level. The only way that you get better is by pushing yourself to play harder stuff. If you can’t play it without mistakes, slow it down. If you still can’t play it without mistakes, slow it down some more… play a bar, then 2, then 3… then start speeding it up. Even if it takes you a year or more to learn a piece (and you’re not practicing your mistakes) you’ll see some great improvements. :slight_smile:

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If you don’t want to learn how to slap then there’s not a lot lost by skipping it… you can always come back later if you decide that you want to learn it. Your time is better spent doing something you enjoy and there’s no reason to slow down your progress with something that you don’t :slight_smile:

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Once upon a time, using a spoon was hard but i expect that you managed to sort that out :slight_smile:

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Great! Thanks guys for your feedback!

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