I answered a call on ‘find a band’ type website earlier in the week, met up with some random guy in a nearby town, I explained my situation and position. It seems that this guy is very experienced having played and gigged in other bands, so it’s obvious that I’m far below his level, but we came away with something constructive. I’ve been in contact with an old friend who’s far more experienced than I am. We have a WhatsApp group and are discussing songs on there. Im currently working my socks off to learn ‘Beatles - come together’, so I’m probably going to have a week off or slow down on b2b.
I’m getting the feeling that whilst it’s good to learn the technical, I’m not actually learning to play or improve technique.
Now having said that, I’m now finding my index/middle plucking going out of the window. 
It’s probably not going out the window. You’re probably paying closer attention to how you’re doing it, attempting more variations, and noticing your mistakes.
This is a normal learning progression particularly as you approach the end of the novice phase moving into the intermediate phase.
When I was a serious swing dancer, that’s the cycle things took for me. One week, I’d go out dancing and everything would click. I’d be dancing the best I ever had.
The next week, I’d take a lesson, I’d go out dancing… and everything would feel awkward. I’d be apparently struggling and making tons of mistakes. Then I’d come back a week later, and be dancing even better than I was 2 weeks before.
What happens is: you learn something new (technique, skill, concept, etc.). As you play and practice, you try new things and test ideas. This leads to mistakes as you experiment with nuances and discover what works. Then you step away, take a break, rest, and during that downtime, your brain processes and internalizes everything. Then you come back to it and perform the skill better than before having internalized lessons, but not yet challenged yourself with new ones. Then you learn something new, and the process repeats itself.
When you’re an absolute beginner, this cycle looks like more of a straight line, because it happens so fast. It might happen in days or even hours. As you progress, these phases take longer and longer. They get really noticeable when you start getting into the later novice phase.
14.07.25 Module 13
Module 13 covers walk ups (and downs), the principle is pretty straightforward, however putting it in to practice not so. To understand walk ups, we need to understand scales and the notes that go with them. I understand the scale shapes (in simple form, not cut and paste) but I still haven’t fully memorised notes on the neck.
Disregarding this, let’s crack on with the lesson and follow the tabs.
I found Boogie Woogie too fast for me, too many note and string changes, yet again taking my eye off the neck to look at the tab or visa versa and I soon get lost. I think I’d already resigned myself to this fact on the sneak peak. I gave it my best shot but failed. I also struggled with the final workout on pixies hey. I was ok on the slow workout, fell behind a bit on the medium and had no chance on the fast workout.
One thing that seems to catch me out with tabs is the screen change, the tabs on the workout are usually 4 bars, when the tab switches over to bar 5 is usually the point where I’m getting hung up, and anything with a more than about 6 different notes I’m not remembering. My short term memory is shocking.
In the medium workout Josh mentions how we’re are no longer learning just numbers (tabs), but how we now know the notes. I’m here thinking, maybe for you, but not for me… I just seem to be learning numbers, and not very well. Tabs can be rather fast where I lose track.
Those pesky Nashville numbers were mentioned again in M13. Interesting that I’ve conversed with 3 different guitarists in these past few weeks and neither of them knew what they were exactly… 
Take a look at this…
I wouldn’t worry too much about Nashville numbers at this time. Just bank them for another day unless you are planning to spontaneously play a live jam somewhere this weekend. Don’t expect to be a master of slap by the end of the course either. Have you printed the course extras PDF out? Then you can then see all the bars rather than being confused by scrolling. Alternately write it out yourself. When you come to 100 songs you can change the view.
16.07.25 -Module 14
Module 14 covers groove and time keeping. We play along to a drum beat which goes silent in parts and we have to keep up, and in good time. I personally found this module a piece of cake and wonder why this was left so late in the course. We did syncopation earlier in the b2b course, I’d expect that groove and time keeping ought to have come before syncopation.
In the final lesson, I did find ‘james brown feel good’ a bit tricky. I managed the slow workout, half managed the medium workout, but couldn’t even perform the first bar on the full workout. This was much too fast for me, even after memorising the notes, I could get there fast enough. This was just impossible and I gave up halfway through bar 1.
18.05.25 Chasing Cars
Looking for something simple to play for a quick win, and self gratification. Snow Patrols ‘Chasing Cars’ came on the radio. Seems simple enough, nailed it in about 10 minutes.
Without doubt, I’ve taken something away from B2B as I dropped the last few bars down an octave for dramatic bass effect.
I didn’t even have to think about how to do it. 
Rock on!
Yeah, you’re later in the course now, and the bass lines in the exercises are more complicated and there to challenge the people who would have sailed through the first half of the course.
“I personalized the bass line by dropping it an octave at the end for dramatic effect,” is good bass player thinking.
28.07.25 - Conclusion
I finished the course a few days ago, but didn’t get around to my final post.
So the big question I suppose “Am I Badass”.
In all honesty I’d have to say No.
However, ask me if I’ve learned anything, ask me if I’ve progressed, and the answer would be a definite YES.
The course has taught me so much in the space of about 6-8 weeks, I had my first jam session with real people this weekend, the course has given me the confidence to play with others. I explained my situation plus my experience, and asked them to be gentle on me. I’m not sure that I needed to worry too much, just picked the right songs and blended in almost seamlessly. It was fantastic fun. I’m pleased with the progress from a non bass player to jamming real songs with real people in such a short space of time.
I will be the first to admit that I’ve a heck of a lot yet to learn, and I do intend to go through the course all over again.
I’m glad that I kept this diary, as I can go back and look at places where I struggled the 1st time around.
In conclusion, if like me you’re a beginner who’s never played, then this course is a good starting point and well worth the outlay.
“We play along to a drum beat which goes silent in parts and we have to keep up, and in good time.“
The Gap Click app helps you to develop this skill:
Yeah “Badass” is probably a bit of an oversell. But I do think becoming “badass” in a true sense in a short amount of time was never really an option to begin with.
On the other hand, I learned more about scales in this course casually watching over a few months than I learned in a few years of high school music.
(But this was probably a “me” problem, Sharay Reed was also in my high school orchestra).
….I digress, I do think this is worthy of a “Beginner to Stage” course or “Beginner to Jam” course, which is impressive in its own right just without the marketable alliteration.