First lesson that I get suggested by the platform is modes… I had 0 knowledge in music… so… back to Youtube and buy books to learn music. 1 month later, back to SBL… arpeggios, triads… etc… kept trying to push through… disappointment after disappointment. Hired an external teacher to help me translate SBL… then broke my hand and asked for a subscription pause… they didnt… so rest of the year just ticked off… took advantage of the last week when I got cleared to play bass again… slowly.
They do have good instructors… Ian, Mann, Rich Brown and other. Not a fan of Scott’s teaching Methods.
B2B was everything it promised… clean, simple and straight to the point, perfect for a recovering ignorant like me.
Talking Bass is complementing rest of need and courses are permanent… no yearly subs.
Musora/Drumeo is also launching a bass platform… and if they are anything like Drumeo, it will be an awesome solution… but yearly sub as well.
For me to go back to SBL, lots would have to change(like they recruiting @JoshFossgreen AND Mark)… and leave Scott as CEO and let others do the teaching
@Megatronpt , it would be interesting to know, when was it, that you attempted to learn at SBL? Because it sounds very much like my experience from over 10 years ago, when I was also overwhelmed. Things like the Player’s Path and the awesome website did not exist back then. And as I said, I still think, Josh and his B2B is much better for bloody beginners, much easier to understand and follow if you don’t know anything about music theory or bass playing already.
For me, it was quite perfect to finish the B2B and then go to SBL afterwards. I am pretty sure that I would have felt kinda lost today too, when jumping into SBL directly, without B2B. I don’t want to miss any second of B2B and I am very grateful for Josh’s work! See my longer review of SBL above for details. To put it simple: it’s just way harder than B2B.
Regarding the price - it’s possible to be charged monthly, which comes down to roundabout 30 bucks per month. When I took lessons at a real life teacher, he charged me the same for 45 mins instead of a whole month. So I am pretty much okay with that.
It was a similar thing to player’s path… “start your bass journey here” … or any FOMO similar thing that they had when when I first logged in.
Overwhelmed is exactly the term “Here’s your dose or reality for the year you ignorant”… more or less how it hit me. I went to a couple of those member Huddles asking for help… they always steered me to things that were NOT for beginners. I nearly quit Bass, but I was stubborn and went looking for info and getting lessons IRL. Those are the ones responsible for me still playing bass today.
Yes, I do hold a grudge to SBL… not for being hard or for some teachers being boring and bad at teaching… but for simply not even bothering to cater for that need, especially when at that time surgery was still on the table… fortunately wasn’t needed then.
Yeah I know exactly what you mean and I’m sorry to hear that. But that was really my old experience from more than 10 years ago, so what year did you try it there?
Today it’s really completely different. Everything is overhauled in a very high quality way which simply did not exist a few years ago. Back at the time, it was just a simple Website and I think Scott did it all alone on his own. Today it’s a huge team with a great website and user experience, very well prepared. I can clearly say, they learned from their past. That’s my point of view at least.
This is the point that made me go off them. I signed up for the free tab from one video and got 7 emails in one day.
I used to enjoy the rapport between Scott and Ian, but found some of the videos and clickbait titles ( Pro bassist hears X for the first time!, or Why Z is the GOAT!) to be mildly irritating enough to unsubscribe.
I’m glad you are getting on well with the lessons though, horses for courses, different strokes etc, etc!
Yep! But as I said above, the mails are not that bad anymore. Currently on standard settings, it’s like 1 mail each day or the other.
In that quote, I was referring to my first try of SBL back in 2012’ish. There was no Ian back then. Just to make sure to avoid misunderstandings.
@firefly yeah full stack was a separate course, something they will probably only offer once a year like the fretboard accelerator, and yeah it’s purchased separately. If you run into folks at SBL who are taking it and hear feedback please share.
@Megatronpt my wife uses Musora for piano and her annual subscription would give me access to the bass portion, if you give it a try let me know if it’s worth it or not.
OK, I guess I wanted to elaborate a bit here. But let’s begin with a disclaimer: I am not being paid by SBL in any way, but I am certainly quite invested as I have signed up for their top-tier program “Blueprint”. And so, yes, I guess I am biased.
OK, two hypotheses here, neither of which is exactly new or daring or requires deeper insight, but which are worth repeating here to give the discussion a better foundation:
SBL is NOT a beginner site, especially not for absolute beginners who want to take their first steps with bass. SBL might claim to cater to beginners as well, but not in any way near to what can be had with BassBuzz
BassBuzz is the BEST place for learning bass from zero (or re-learning after a break etc.) and the way we are guided by Josh is simply perfect for this purpose. The issue is then that many feel left “hanging” after the course and have a hard time finding out how to continue
Other statements I could add:
SBL is a juggernaut now and that has obvious benefits but also serious challenges
traditionally, I like to favor and support “underdogs” (and I would consider Mark in this context as an underdog as he simply does not have the same resources). However, I have opted for SBL early on and have stayed with them.
the main and persistent challenges of online (music) education are: interactivity; feedback; accountability
SBL has been trying to devise program alleviating (at least partially) these issues (Player’s Path, Stacked Bassist, LiveClass, Blueprint), but there are practical limits (and basically always will be).
Some of these were also designed to offer guidance, in order to help students out of that feeling of being overwhelmed with all the offerings. And, really, is that not what many of us are seeking the most!?
After Josh’s fantastic guidance through B2B, we find ourselves as budding bassists ready to explore the world. And, while we were all the “same” during B2B, now we all start to diverge violently, in our interests, in our goals, in our capacities, in our time available and so on. How could Josh possibly cater for that diversity?? He basically can’t.
SBL is throwing more and more resources at it, but also along the way realized that does not necessarily provide guidance and direction. And so, other programs were devised to rectify this to some degree.
Some have failed… not least because too many resources were needed! (LiveClass is now being sunset because too many teachers, and (relatively speaking) too few students were involved).
From a business point of view, SBL needs to provide new contents and programs all the time in order to provide sufficient cash flow to maintain staff and infrastructure etc. Being a juggernaut is not necessarily smooth sailing…
What I am trying to say is: I think someone like Scott Devine is genuinely trying to figure out how to crack that nut that is online teaching for the diversity of bass players and their interests out there. (And he has to, too, in order to survive as a business long-term). It seems to become apparent that this is not really possible as a one-man operation.
Sorry for the long rant! Two final comments: sorry to hear about anyone having had bad experiences with SBL over payments etc.
And: Josh is an absolute gentleman for providing this forum here for guys like me who hasn’t paid a penny since buying the B2B course sometime before everybody knew what a pandemic was!!
Yeah, I do think he is trying… but not everyone in his team is sharing his vision, which is unfortunately the downside of businesses as they grow big. Hence a more CEO position needed by Scott so he can actually sit with people and work on company culture & vision. With that in mind, I do think there should be a bit more of KYC from Scott & Team and cement that base before throwing courses and courses.
Only the future knows what will happen, will we have a giant Musora directly competing in the next 2/3 years with SBL? No clue.
My cousin is also on SBL and he got shocked at their reaction to my broken hand… but he got a lifetime deal and took it.
I think every site / company needs to take advantage of learning and improvement opportunities. Maybe in the end we can all huddle up and create a MusoraSBBLTBetc.
Hm, OK, it seems you have a particular challenge with one (or more?) individuals there… sorry to hear! But, yeah, as organizations grow, this is often an (unfortunate) side-effect.
I feel deceived and stolen… and on top of it not heard by support, that should understand that challenges arise.
Other members, like Heket(Or Hekat, never remember… but I like her), understood my situation and apologized for that practice(Not pausing), asked where I was going and was polite with me until my account expired. That is the type of person that should be in charge or support.
As a musician / teacher, we need to understand that sometimes those that use our platforms might be facing challenges and that we - as a business - should do our best to help.
I do coaching for companies, executives and team leaders in sports and esports, if I didn’t manage to establish a communication channel, a rapport… or simple empathy with clients, how would I expect to thrive? Businesses grow and sometimes its hard to maintain the quality we’d like, but if we are honest and don’t make other people feel deceived we have a better pitch/sale ratio.
Companies will be companies, we all are free to choose the ones that follow our values and those that don’t. SBL was a massive disappointment to me
I do understand your anger and the situation that you were in. A broken hand while being enrolled in such a course is very bad luck and they were clearly not accomodating.
But when I put it simple and very blunt, they were simply just not accomodating. Nothing more, nothing less. They have not violated any right to a refund or a break. They also have running costs which want to be calculated and paid. As a customer, you even get a discount if you decide to pay yearly instead of monthly. Everything else is - in my mind, I’m sorry to say - just very bad luck and force majeure. If you pay Netflix for a month but you have to go to the hospital for 3 of 4 weeks, they will also not pause or refund your subscription…
Don’t get me wrong, I do understand you, I really do. I just try to see the other side of the coin and I think, they actually did nothing wrong. They were just not accomodating, which they sure could be in such a situation, but that’s not a customer right or anything like that. And also, such an experience is crap, but it doesn’t make all their (actually great) content bad or worthless… I hope you don’t hate me now, @Megatronpt. I’m just trying to look at it rationally from both sides.
That said, I still very much agree with @joergkutter and I’m really happy that I’m not the only one who’s had very good experiences with SBL so far. As I said above, I’m not a bloody beginner but more sort of a returner and after being done with the fabulous B2B, SBL was just exactly what I was looking for. Content-wise, and skill-wise.
I will keep posting future recording within my thread here, so those who are interested, can check a few tunes out and see what the learning material is like.
Just to make sure to avoid misunderstandings.
