Hi Matt. Great to hear you decided to try bass. I too just started 9 months ago & at age 60 with zero instrument experience at all.
You’ll find it both challenging & very rewarding & it will be a lifetime endeavour to constantly improve. The B2B course is an excellent way to start. I just lost my father & he never got to hear what I can already play. My kids & wife have started making requests for certain songs. No pressure or anything. 
Have fun & enjoy your journey.
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Sorry for your loss! I know the feeling, my Grandfather was the man who mostly raised me and he passed before getting to really hear my stuff.
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JT Oh yeah OK…I totally get what you mean. I am doing that already by necessity. I didnt know there was a name or technique geared toward that though lol. I thought I was cheating or picking up a bad habit right off the get go. I pretty much find it impossible NOT to do that, at least a little bit…lol. I never thought about people with large hands or long fingers struggling more to play the notes that are really close together either. Huh. Perspective. I have trouble wrapping my hand/wrist around the neck too, to hit the top strings.
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Your hands will naturally stretch and become more flexible as you play more too. I couldn’t come close to stretching my left hand from fret 1 to fret 5 when I started but now I can reach it without shifting. I can really notice a difference when I fully stretch out both hands and hold them next to each other – it’s kind of crazy how much farther my left hand can stretch out vs right hand. And that’s just from playing for about year, no specific stretching exercises or anything like that. Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with microshifting and it’s a valuable technique to know.
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Nice. I’ll keep that in mind. Yeah my fingers need a lot of work and excersize and practice. So far I can really even use 2 of them to play. Only my index and middle finger are adaquately useful so far. The ring finger is trying but its akward, and the pinky…fooggettaboutit! lol
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Of course this varies a lot by individual and there is nothing wrong with shifting.
After a couple years my maximum stretch is 1-4 and it is not comfortable on the E or A strings. Hand size and physiology varies a lot.
On the other hand, shifting works fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with shifting.
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Yeah, I can only manage 3 frets, and sometimes shift for that. I find fretting with my ring and pinky together helps
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Yeah tried to make that point at the end. I’m not saying any technique is better than the other, just that your fingers may stretch a little over time and those initially tough reaches may get easier. Of course there’s a million physiological factors that will make everyone’s experience different.
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Yup yup!
One thing I like to caution people on is to not obsess over the one-finger-per-fret reach. A lot of emphasis is placed on it online and it’s complete crap. It’s good when it is in your natural range but should be abandoned in favor of a three-fret span and shifting when it is not.
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Hi @IIIQuaZIII, welcome to the forum and the bass. Don’t stress yourself out about scales, learning the notes on the fretboard and impossible stretches. Just take it one step at a time and enjoy the process.
A song that I really liked to play along when I started out is She Brings the Rain by Can. Apart from the intro, it’s just the same four notes over and over again. Might be some good practice to get that pinky working 
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yeah for sure, a good example is the 1FPF orthodoxy of fretting root-5th with index-ring… when the pinky is much more comfortable for me, and just sitting there naturally.
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Is that what they say? Sounds really unnecessary. If anything it should be middle-pinky if you’d want to stick to the scale shape as Josh teaches it.
I actually have most trouble operating my ring finger.
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Good point about the middle-pinky – more broadly what I meant is one-finger-per-fret wants you to keep your 4 fingers assigned to a range of 4 frets at all times (which can shift as a group up and down the fretboard). So yeah root-5 would either be index-ring or middle-pinky depending on your hand position. I get the idea behind it and there are definitely advantages to being able to play that way comfortably, but like howard said it’s overly strict, not really necessary, and can actually be harmful if your hands aren’t naturally suited for it. Just doesn’t 100% work for me.
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Yeah. All it is about is economy of motion. But really economy of motion only becomes really beneficial in very advanced and complicated playing.
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And economy of motion only helps if it is a motion you can comfortably and cleanly fret in the first place. Otherwise it is just a risk for poor fretting at best.
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We don’t get style points for looks. Make it work is my motto.
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The one other thing I am really noticing that I dont have a feel for yet, is how to pluck the strings! Pluck it to hard, and I get a fret buzz, pluck it not hard enough, or partially miss it, and I get a short clipped note, or a chirp. I’m sure that comes with practice too. I am not a sports player nor an instrument player by nature. My hobbies, and pursuits, and career skills have always been purely intellectual and mostly knowledge based. I do IT/Networking/PC repair, electronic repair, race and repair a muscle car, and work on ham radio. Manual dexterity, and learning and knowing how to physically move my body, and being physically coordinated in general has never been my strong suite. This is an interesting and HUMBLING thing to try to learn!
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the times that you are actually supposed to make some gigantic stretch are very very few in real life. and then, just microshift.
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hah, welcome to being a beginner. no different then any other beginner. including all the greats 
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Have you seen these Beginner Basics by Josh?
There is also a thread on Josh’s videos ordered by skill level and topic so maybe it could give you some guidance: BassBuzz YouTube Video Guide
And not to advertise something I eventually dropped out of but Fender Play do a 14-day free trial period. I found their very basic lessons helpful and structured but left eventually because I got bored.
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