That one is not too bad once you put your head down, it would just be breaking down section by section. The outro is a little tricky but not too bad.
This is intimidating version
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Challenges? Like swimming across the Atlantic from the U.S. to France? That challenging? Joe Dart always sets a high bar, and Dean Town raises it into the stratosphere. Good luck learning it (I mean that in a totally positive sense). If you haven’t read it, here’s an article where he breaks down how he tackles playing his most-difficult bass line.
Joe Dart breaks down the Dean Town bassline
It sounds like you’ve hit a plateau. This is a normal part of the learning process.
When this happens, you need to rest, recover, and give things time to incorporate. Pushing harder is counterproductive.
One of my hobbies is lifting weights. The strength building process is not linear. The way you program is to set aside a span of 5-9 weeks (depending on age) where you progressively build in intensity. Then you take a Deload Week and rest. If you lift, you do it at <60% intensity. Then you start back up at a lower level than where you peaked and begin building up again to a a new, higher, peak.
Take the same approach to learning a skill. You’ve peaked. Your brain is full. It needs recovery time. Take a full week off of the course and “learning”. Just play around with stuff that is fun and easy. Songs you know and maybe some improv jamming. Then pick the course back up. Maybe even go back a module or two.
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If your anything like me, the hardest part of b2b was playing the songs from tab exactly how the original was played.
To me, B2B is like painting with Bob Ross. He revolutionized how to teach and learn painting. His goal wasn’t a bunch of clones that could regurgitate the same painting 1000 times. His goal was to give 1000 people the basics so they could grow into their own version of an artist.
Learn the lesson Josh is trying to teach. Then go and make happy little accidents until you come up with something that you’re proud of.
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I play this on the job site every time the painters arrive. They are truly sick of it. Which obviously makes it funnier.
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I’ve been doing B2B for a few months now and completed this lesson recently. It was maddening and definitely the hardest I’ve encountered as well. My fingers don’t work like I want them to…yet. I bookmarked the lesson and continued on. What really helped me get through the slow work out was pulling up the bass tab in the extras, breaking into chunks and practicing each day. After about a week I was able to make it through the slow and then the medium work out, not without error. Keep at it. You can do it!!
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That bass playing is insane.
Print or display the Tab so you can look ahead at the 9th bar.
My favorite hate are Disco Octaves.
What a mess that was. I cannot get past it. I will play the first 4 bars really well, then lose my place and it is lost. I start over with disco octaves again, then miss the first string. I cannot win. I want to just move on but if I don’t get this I will not be able to play anything later. I can’t even figure out how to play an entire song with him only teaching a few bars. I don’t know where to go after that. I don’t think I will ever get this.
Just move on to the next lesson and come back to this later.
Folks here have have been where you are, and they’ve shared their experiences and advice.
Again, it seems like you are being unrealistically hard on yourself. You’re assuming you should be able to play this line, but sometimes it’s just not in the cards at the moment.
Josh is a seasoned, excellent teacher. He operates from a position of knowledge of how to teach beginners. When he says move on from a slow workout if it’s not coming easily, then trust him. He knows of what he speaks.
Just relax. In learning to play an instrument, you’re always going to run into tunes that come easy and some that come hard, or never at all.
At this point, recommendations and advice have all been said. Take them for what they’re worth.
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I can’t play that. I can’t play more than he teaches in the course. If he doesn’t teach it, I cannot play it. Well, now I can’t even do that. I can’t get anything he is teaching now. I am going to have to start all over again or just sell my Bass and forgrt it.
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Many Buzzers have gone through B2B two, three, or more times. It’s a wise thing to do for new bass players who have little or no prior experience studying music.
These folks find they might have glossed over or simply ignored the “easy stuff’ Josh presents in the early lessons, but all the fundamentals he presents are critically important to understand and master before trying to tackle later lessons. Without a firm grasp of the fundamentals of technique and timing, playing more than simple lines can be difficult, or even impossible, which some have found out the hard way.
Do what’s best for you. If that means pursuing learning to play bass, great. If it means not doing that, there’s no shame.
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What bass is it? Asking for a friend 
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Seriously though, @foodforestcharleston - don’t get hung up on not being able to do a single lesson. It’s fine. Just move on and come back to it.
And don’t worry about not being able to play Dean Town. Almost no one here can reliably play Dean Town. It would require significant practice to work up to, and it’s way, way beyond the level B2B gets you to on its own.
We have all been there. The trick is to either skip forward or try it and sleep on it. When the level of intensity is dialed down enough your brain takes different approach to attack it. Happens to me every months as new songs are introduced to the set list drummer want to play a song he likes regardless of how torturous the Bass part is. Oh same goes to the guitar play and the Keys as well.
All of them gave me a dirty look when I recommended this tune. I said whaaat, it’s not that bad and the bass part is really difficult.
I skipped the entire slap module 5 years ago and have never been back.
Really hasn’t affected my enjoyment of playing bass.
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Yeah if I am honest I still can’t do the whole Disco Octaves fast workout
I hate them and never ever looked back after that lesson.
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I hated the disco octaves lesson. Struggled through it, and quickly moved on.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve started working on a song that has a small section of not-quite disco octaves, so now I’m suddenly having to work on them.
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Yeah I can do occasional octaves without issue, it’s the whole relentless rocking back and forth that gets me for the prolonged disco ones though, just wears me down fast
Don’t give it up. One day it will click and you will laugh about it. I just started the scale lesson and it is a horror show at the moment but I know I will eventually get it.
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