I have been taking Beginner to Badass and I am on Papa’s got a brand new bag. This is insane!!! I just cannot get this song. I have, or I thought I was progressing well and this F,ing song is making me so mad that I cannot stand it. I want to throw my Bass out the window.
I am so absolutely upset right now, and I hate to swear but I am finding myself doing it. I listen to songs and I just cannot play anything. Nothing I have learned has stuck. I am doing this to play in my Church praise team for Sunday service, and I just don’t think I ever will. I guess I am just too darn old. HELP!!!
slow it down, play it very very slow with a metronome, if you still can’t get it, go SLOWER. Once it is under your fingers, up it by 2bpm, rinse and repeat back to full speed.
Getting your eyes and ears to coordinate with your fingers takes time, so more than others. No way round it.
I am just so frustrated. I haven’t even gotten through the slow workout. I have been doing so well and this is killing me that I cant get it. Thanks for the advice.
My friend @John_E started at the same time (about 5 years ago) on B2B and we’ve been through the same thing you’re experiencing. Multiple mutiple times.
I’m learning a new song now for the band and I’m really struggling.
It happens to everyone. Slow it right down. Like painfully slow. Walk away. Come back in a few hours and repeat.
It’s the long boring process of repetition that’ll get you there in the end.
Our drummer want’s to add this to the set list. Wherever you are there will be challenges.
I remember this one took was difficult for me too. I don’t remember specifics, but there was something about it that took awhile to click for me. Sometimes it will be like that for me. A certain song just doesn’t click , either the rhythm or the pattern, something will make a song more difficult than average. Don’t be afraid to move on.
Billie Jean gets all the attention but Papa kicked my ass way more than Billie ever did. Two years later, I’d probably still have to practice it a bit if I wanted to play it (I don’t).
I fully get it. I wanted to throw my bass out the window for that one too and it was the first thing in the course that really felt that way. I will say that nothing else in the course has been that challenging (well, full speed My Sharona maybe), and I have had several bass-affirming experiences since that made me very glad I did not defenestrate my instrument.
As for playing in church, you may get there sooner than you think. I have a lot of trouble remembering the songs I try to learn by myself but playing with others for the first time this past weekend, I found it much easier to remember the song we were working on together because it was like it activated a different and possibly more urgent part of my brain.
Anyway, that song is a difficult song! It’s ok to set it aside for a while and come back to it later.
Yea, I moved on and then the next one was worse. I am just pissed off at the speed. I can’t keep up and I am really discouraged at this point. I’m done for a while. I’ll come back tomorrow and see how bad I can mess up the next one.
Part of learning this is accepting that you (not you specifically) suck at this and to give yourself a little bit of grace. In 6 months, you can revisit a lot of whats in the course and you’d find that it all feels much easier. You are getting better, it just doesn’t happen at the pace that most of us would prefer.
Just about every beginner gets frustrated with the “lack of progress” at one point or another. It stems from an assumption:
“I should be able to play this because this guy I’m looking at (Josh) is doing it so seemingly easily.”
This is a patently false and worthless assumption, as those who approach learning something completely foreign to them realize in time.
Look at it this way: You’re attempting to master something that is not yet in your capability zone. There’s no shame in not being at the level of a seasoned player, because the fact is you’re not a seasoned player yet. It takes time, patience, and practice. When students of anything realize that, they relax, and they let the learning process happen…in its own time.
Every beginner taking B2B gets there, if they just embrace the suck.
ALL Buzzers have sucked. Most of us still do, at least at some aspects of playing we would like to play better. Hell, pro players(!) feel they suck at certain techniques. That is the human condition.
Just take some time away from bass for now. Breathe deeply. Do something else you enjoy. Relax. THEN come back to bass, but with the attitude adjustment that certain techniques and/or lines are going to require calm, dedicated, slow practice — WAY, WAY slower than a B2B lesson’s slow workout — to finally get under your fingers. Just be patient and do whatever you can do at this point. The ultimate goal for any player is to be marginally, even minutely, better the next time he/she picks up the bass. It’s all we can ask for, and it is great when it happens.
It’s all about attitude.
It’s even more important than practice, practice, practice.
Don’t just play the bass, 𝙗𝙚 the bass!
When you plug in, nothing should exist but you and the music.
Think about method acting.
A method actor doesn’t just play a character, he 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 the character, sometimes even staying in character off the set.
Attitude!
I wanted to quit learning after a few unproductive months, but once I changed my attitude, everything else fell into place.
That’s actually not bad at all if you can play it well, that run-up looks tricky to consistently hit. Neat little syncopation on it. It would take me a while to nail this consistently.
Try it with this. I just hum the melody until I got it down. If this French crowd can do it I can too,
I remember the first we Played that song on a gig because I secretly wanted to play it but I planted the idea to my guitar player and it was, well at least to me a disaster my 16th felt like triplets hmmm! Got to redeem myself at the end of the set
. This got added to the set list recently and it’s about my current ability.
