That’s why I enjoy Rick Beato’s series “what makes this song great?” 
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my brain has trouble with these words pushed up together like this
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I considered putting “enjoy” in quotes 
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Really? I do enjoy the “What makes this song great” series. What has poor Rick done to deserve this?
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It is a bit hard to articulate what exactly it is about Beato that bugs me. It’s more an aggregation of small things. He’s an accomplished and talented producer, a skilled multi-instrumentalist, and is generally extremely knowledgeable.
But maybe it’s how he seems to let advanced knowledge leak in to even the simpler explanations; maybe his clickbait “best” lists featuring generally mostly blandish mainstream rock; maybe it’s just his general delivery, not sure. Just not my favorite music youtuber.
His “What makes this song great” series is very good work, agree there.
I am also totally aware that this is a “me” thing. He’s very popular for a reason.
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Ah OK, thanks for the explanation. To be fair I’m not familiar with his other videos, so I can’t comment on those. In the “What makes this song great” series he does come across as very knowledgeable, and I think he does a great job explaining all the little production details that make the difference between a good and a great song.
What always amazes me is that he seems to have all the individual track recordings for those songs… Probably due to his connections in the music industry.
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I love Rick. I also love Scott. I love B-side. Maybe I’m just weird.
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Hey, I thought this surely might depend on how quickly you get through the fundamentals. Riffs are great as an instant gratification (look I’m playing bass, woohoo!) I was learning full songs and playing live within 6 months, but only because I was so desperate to play with other people and that was the easiest way to do that. But as soon as I had completed the course after a month I just wanted to be able to play what I thought and for that the best way was to play along to records when relaxing -sometimes playing what I hear and sometimes just playing whatever I feel like. Then its just joyful but I naturally became aware of things like how handy it is recognising intervals. I found a natural motivation to seek out the theory that I needed because it was relevant. And when you play along to records without tabs you start to work out for yourself why you would choose certain frets over others and naturally play all over the fretboard too. I’d have to say that playing with others is most motivational for functional stuff like focussed practice , speed, dexterity and improv. is the most motivational for learning musicianship.
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Technical exercises and theoretical matters. I am a “scientist mind” (is it how you call it in English?) and learning all this stuff, how it works and how it is all connected was a blast for me. And doing technical exercises give me incredible satisfaction.
Quite funny, because now I’m attracted to all of this, what I rejected when I was learning music as a 11-14 y.o. kid (classical guitar). I was told to practice scales and those boring etudes and all I wanted was to play Nirvana songs!
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This is very funny, and so dang true.
I see the same thing in myself as I start learning things now vs when I was a kid. Young folks tend to DO and while they’re DOING things, they learn, but not very consciously.
As an old folk, I want to answer the WHY question all the time.
This is a great reminder for me to stop explaining to myself, and just do things.
Also, @eric.kiser - that list is splendid. A terrific breakdown for how to bring out the totality of a bass line for the student.
Love this thread.
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Now that I have the basics down I do look for these things that improve specific things I want to improve. But they are all really means to an end of playing harder songs for me that I can’t just fake with bad technique.
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“Scientist mind” works; I would call you cerebral, partially because I like how the word sounds. 
I don’t know if you still do, but I wanna play Nirvana songs, too.
(ok fine - and know how things work and be more than just a competent player)
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So for me, for the first couple months it was a secret thing i did just for me, but what kept it interesting was choosing b2b.
Being able to do the modules at my pace, with no one to tell me how much to do any one thing was good. Because i could actually see and hear progress at a pace i could set.
Then, it became more challenging and so i started looking at tabs on various sites and incorporated that.
What keeps it interesting? Being able to go back and watch continue to learn.
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For me, besides the excellent B2B that gave me the solid foundation and the initial boost to my bass playing motivation and abilities, it was two things that most gave me satisfaction:
Learning full songs. Before B2B, I used to try and learn my favourite songs on the the guitar and, due to lack of experience, I would only be able to play shorter riffs. To be able to play songs in full is so much more satisfying, because it gives you the entire structure and experience of a song as well as the playing stamina.
And being able to play songs that I’d never thought I’d be able to play this soon (eg. Sunflower by Vampire Weekend). To be able to break down songs into manageable chunks and to learn rhythms that seem difficult on paper but come natural by ear always feel like a breakthrough and add a lot to one’s skill set.
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This!
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Totally! Nothing has changed here, I just started to appreciate other aspects of learning music.
I feel like I’m still the same kid that I was 20 years ago (only with more life experience) 
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I’m onboard with the “whole songs” and “songs I love” camps. Nothing was more motivational in the first few months than actually playing something through start to finish… for me it was Smash Mouth Superstar, simplified version of Don’t Stop Believing and then it really came together with My Sharona… Throw in a few simple Sting and Tom Petty songs as well (I Won’t Back Down is super fun and simple and I wish I’d found it in my first month).
The hardest part was finding songs I liked that were simple enough as a beginner. Easy to find simple songs. Easy to find songs I liked. Not so easy to identify the overlap. I wish there was a good tab database that would allow you to filter by “difficulty”… But I’m not sure how you’d define that. Or a place that posted simpler versions of generally more difficult songs (like the YouTube versions of my Sharona and don’t stop believing I stumbled across).
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I’ll be super happy if anyone ever hears me play and thinks, “yeah, he’s competent.”
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