Unfortunately Norwegian death metal flute is a narrow genre here in Poland (although she’d love the makeup!).
Actually, I should confess that one reason for not joining the orchestra was that all their scores were in music notation and I couldn’t be arsed to figure it out. Admittedly, the conductor was a dick and I just wasn’t into a lot of the music… But yea my lack of note reading ability did contribute…
I just learned that you can never be a good bass player when you don’t know notation 
literally no one said this
Hence the smileys 
and one more
Ditto!!
. About the only thing I’ve ever dealt with in any band (mostly jam band) situations was an understanding of the Nashville Number System. To each their own though…… I look at “theory” as being the “Brussel sprouts” of music. Although it might be good for you, to me it tastes like shit and I’ve learned to survive in this world without eating any it……
Not uncommon
No doubt
This is definitely one of the situations where it’s kind of table stakes to be able to read music, for any instrument.
This is the part I really don’t get. I understand not wanting to put in the effort to learn, but every time these kinds of discussions happen it always seems like some folks take a weird kind of pride in not knowing these things.
It’s just weird, like being proud of being illiterate or something.
Usually the argument will come up like “Eddie Van Halen couldn’t read music!” to which all I can think is “Sorry bro, but you’re not EVH.”
Nor am I, which is why it makes sense to me to learn some theory. I am not a prodigy; I need all the help I can get. It’s a hell of a lot easier to learn some theory than to become a prodigy when you ain’t.
Well…
30 years ago, 20 years ago, perhaps 10 years ago, I would have said “That’s just nuts!”
Nowadays… I just don’t know anymore 
Yeah one of the tracks they played was Living on a prayer - I could learn it pretty well from the tab but for some reason they put it in a different key. Nightmare…
I’m sure she could make that work! It might need to be a bit more of a folk death metal feel, but there’s definitely potential there.
That’s the answer.
I started about the same time and before you can touch any keys you gotta know what note you are touching, seriously? It’s so extreme.
Music reading has a lot of perks if you know your fingerboard you can play it anywhere on it depending on the flow. Tabs show you precisely where to play it but that could be the downside too.
Imagine learning to read that at 40, 50 60. If that’s the prerequisite very few people would pickup the instrument and learn later in life. It doesn’t take any longer to learn than when you were young same hours of absorption rate, but when you are older you have more things to prioritize.
I think playing instruments is about playing not learning first and bass is easy to get good in relatively short time if the player wants to become even better they can pickup the academic side later.
Yeah that kills the spirit. It’s hard not to paraphrase Victor Wooten philosophy. It’s like having to learn all of the grammars and words before you can speak. It’s unnatural.
I was in a music Boot camp for several years learning 75% playing 25% as soon as I could change my instrument I picked up a bass and transcribe the first song I learned by ear no sheets, in fact I didn’t even right it on a staff, I just wrote down the note name no time signature. I was such a rebel 
I don’t like the way it’s going now either. Kids now don’t know simple arithmetic they can’t add and subtract without their cash register or phone app.
My daughter started her piano lessons at 5 years old and I don’t push her. She did it for a year. Now she has a basic idea. Whatever she wants to do is ok. I just hope that she picks up bass. 
I make my money from playing and not reading. My sponsor put me on retainer for my ability to play not my knowledge of music theory, they just assumed I know it. When I’m on stage there’s no music sheets anywhere.
I hear you, it’s important to learn the academic side of music but it’s only for people who’s ready for it. When they are serious enough about it they can learn it. I will not make that a prerequisite to playing. We need more players our numbers are so low compared to guitar players and keys. Well that can be a good thing for existing players I guess, 
if you are playing you are always player, if you are learning you are always a student. It’s a different attitude.
Couldn’t agree more… I’m in my 70’s which means that I have used up a great majority of what brain matter I have left Now that my brain is pretty much “filled up” with mostly things that I do need to survive in today’s world, having to learn anything additional will require “brain space”… In order to make any brain space available for something new, I would have to eliminate something else that matters - like how to tie my shoes, button my shirt straight, pull the zipper up on my jeans, or put my tee shirt on with the pocket in the front ( hey, we’ve all seen old (like me) walking around in grocery stores before… For me, my brain’s all used up… Maybe if I didn’t have so much fun back in the '60’s, I might have a little more space… 
YES, YES, YES
The fact is, Josh laid out the various levels of bass players very well.
If you’re happy playing by ear/elbow/tab, cool. Mission accomplished. Thump away. No guns applied to any heads, forcing anyone to do anything more.
But if you want to know how and why music is made, there are instructors and courses to help you learn that. And, again, it is a personal decision.
There is no one-size-fits-all choice here: you do you.
I have gone down both of these paths.
The first path offered instant gratification - and a very limiting growth potential. The second path was very challenging and demanded discipline - offering unlimited growth and appreciation of things I’d never known existed without going through the experience.
As is the case with all things in life, we make choices based on our wants. I’ve always wanted to play music and I either took or created opportunities to do that: in my bedroom, in jams, in bands, in music college. All of those experiences were pre-Internet.
Today, with truly great instructors and courses available everywhere online, the opportunities to learn more and better playing techniques, music theory (specifically applicable to bass playing), and reading music (mastering the fretboard), the world of learning more than what one has in his/her own experience exists for the taking. And I truly wish these opportunities had existed many years ago.
Personally, these days I gladly choose to take advantage of the privilege and opportunities to learn everything about bass playing as I can. YMMV
It’s similar to my industry but not to the extreme.
Do you need to go to culinary school before you can boil your first egg or toast your first bread. I went to culinary school as well as 4, well 2 to be more precise, years university for the industry. My school major ranks number 1 in California and when I was there number 4 in the country, last I checked it was #2.
I worked for one of the most recognizable chef in the world and have my fair share of supervising several culinary school graduates as they need the internship. I can tell you without hesitation, schools are full of mediocre.
The best way to brunoise onions or carrots is not in the classroom learning about it and give it a go a few times. It’s going through a 50 lbs bag of onions an and 25 lbs bag of carrots daily. That why on the cooking shows you’d see “top” chefs with rubber gloves or finger cots on their hands, they are out of practice. 
It’s easy for my to say I know I already know how to read music like a book, but man you got to hook them with playing first if not they go play Pokémon on their phones.
This is the way . Kids will try all sorts of things before finding their groove and I guess as a parent you just have to be ready to support them when they get there.
As long as it’s bass lol
Seriously, there is loads of theory about how children pick up languages better then adults. Yeah right - children don’t have to go to work, pay bills, deal with the town hall etc. They have the time to learn things.
Remember when your teacher said “Well, you have to learn times tables because you won’t always have a calculator on you”? If they could see us now eh? 
I agree that playing should come first: feel the instrument; feel what it takes to make sounds on it; wonder why some notes work together while others don’t.
But playing really can advance much better, faster than by random plunking around a fretboard. Believe me, I plunked around on guitar, on my own, for more decades than I care to remember.
Josh and company have created the perfect beginner bass course by first introducing basic techniques to make sounds. Then came simple riffs from popular tunes. Then he upped the ante with more complex popular tunes, sneaking in some rhythm counting (oops, that’s intro to music theory! 
). Then more complex tunes and intro to intervals, then bass line structure, then…, then…, then… (there’s that pesky music theory again, dammit).
The point is: those who have taken B2B learned how to play faster, better and more tunes because Josh used spoonfuls of sugar (snippets of popular tune bass lines) to help the medicine (music theory) go down. Knowledge is power, and Josh served up bass playing knowledge in a cleverly palatable package.
Again, in his latest video, Josh’s definitions of bass player levels are absolutely right on. Playing an instrument is a path, and the choice of how far a player continues on the path of knowledge is a choice for each person. To each his own.
Absolutely agree. Nowadays you can learn in bite size and piece meal. I’m all for deep diving when you get more serious.
Josh video really hits it out of the park.