Hello! I wanted to get started learning bass and I’ve narrowed my options down to B2B and TalkingBass. I’ve done a lot of looking around, but I just don’t know which option to go for as a beginner. Mainly B2B here vs. Talkingbass’ Bassic Fundamentals course. As some background that may or may not be helpful, I have some experience playing instruments already, including violin for 4 years, so I consider myself to know at least the basics of music theory and reading music. I also tried to self study guitar for a couple of months, but wanted to try the bass, so here I am.
The obvious thing pulling me towards Talkingbass is the stark price difference - $200 compared to ~$50 (with discounts). I feel like I would get more interest through B2B because Josh seems like a really good teacher and I’ve read that B2B is a very structured program to the point where you can just go through lessons instead of grinding practice material if you wanted with learning popular songs from the start. Talkingbass seems more technical and although many sing the praises of Mark, I don’t know if I would be getting the same interest out of that dull white background and poor video quality (also unsure about what kind of practice content he does). BUT, with all that said, I don’t know if B2B is really worth 4 times more because of those reasons.
I know people will just tell me to try out B2B because of the 180 day thing, but what I’m also worried about is the content that’s covered. I’ve read that B2B is very beginner focused but still manages to cover a good amount, but if there is anyone out there who has used both, does B2B cover enough where I would feel like I wouldn’t need to purchase TalkingBass’ Bassic Fundamentals? Because if there are still important things to be learned from TalkingBass’ course, then I feel like I can just save $200 and go with that instead, rather than spending an extra $50 after B2B. I don’t want to feel like I missed some important things that TB covers, but I also don’t want to spend a total of $250 when I could have just spent $50 from the beginning.
Of course I’m not discounting the excellent community here and Josh’s entertaining teaching style - but it’s a big price difference that I am struggling to decide on. Not so much a concern on affordability, but worth.
Beginner course: here for sure.
Follow on courses (start with Chord Tones): TalkingBass.
Both Mark and Josh are fantastic instructors, but there is no beginner course available as good as Josh’s.
The two sites complement each other very well. Mark has a wealth of more advanced material to take on after you do the beginner course.
To answer your question, I think Bassic Fundamentals actually covers more ground than B2B. However, what you would be missing is the teaching methodology the course here uses. It’s just a super effective, structured way to learn, and it starts from the absolute beginning.
As an advocate of both B2B and talkingbass, the clear choice for a beginner course is B2B.
Mark is an EXCELLENT teacher and player, absolutely no doubt. But Josh excels at reaching and teaching beginners with his unique course structure and approach, without a doubt.
In the final analysis, this is not a matter of cost per course. It’s about value. Of course, any student might disagree with my assessment, but I personally don’t believe there’s a more effective AND cost-effective way to learn to play bass than B2B.
Both courses cover roughly the same area, B2B does it with much more content, more videos, and extensive play-along learning sessions.
Learning with the Talking Bass course, you have to be much more disciplined, which I wasn’t.
I started with the Talking Bass course, went through all the material, I learned lots about playing bass, but just didn’t get the practice time in to be any good.
B2B helped me a lot in getting in the practice time.
So if you are more of an lazy learner and struggle with structuring your own practice time, get B2B.
I also did B2B with Josh and then Bassic Fundamentals with Mark. I really like both teachers, but no question B2B is absolutely the best place to start. Both cover similar material, but B2B gives you immediate experience playing songs in every genre of music, while teaching technique and theory; and importantly it makes you stay motivated to play and to progress through the course. When you are done, you feel like a bass player, and ready to tackle the next steps in your journey - which may include Mark’s courses.
B2B is an amazing beginner music course. Josh does an especially good job of teaching rhythm.
I’ve gone on to take a couple of Mark’s courses. They’re great, but I also vote to start with B2B. Don’t worry. You’ll be giving Mark money in no time because the one think Josh does better than any online bass teacher is get you excited to keep going.
I did exactly the same thing. I bought both courses. I’m glad I did it in that order.
Josh got me up and playing bass. Mark’s stuff was excellent and there were a few technique things that he covered that made a big difference to my playing. I’m coming up on 3 years and the combination of those 2 set me up for success. Obviously you have to put in the work. There are no free lunches and there’s no such thing as talent.
In the grand scheme of things courses / education is way cheaper than buying more gear.
I’ve subsequently bought more courses from Talking Bass and also Dan Hawkins.
The best endorsement I can give is this: Josh’s Beginner to BadAss is the simply the best Beginner Bass course to bring from you a dead stop to bass competency. That’s no exaggeration.
I love Mark, and he’s great (he really is a good guy). I’ve taken some of his courses, but he will challenge you more, and his courses are more intermediate to advanced. I like Luke McIntosh (Become a Bassist) as a great follow up to Josh, as his courses seem to fit between Josh and Mark. Like Josh, he’s good at encouraging people who don’t have a lot of experience, but he goes on to more advanced courses; his ear training course is very good.
But, to reiterate, Josh is hands down the BEST beginner course. Period.
I really like the dan hawkins courses. He’s appealing to the player who is already relatively well-versed ( this Isn’t me ), but the content is absolutely fire.
I decided to purchase the course yesterday and I’m currently almost done with module 2, just speeding past the beginning because it’s mostly basic rhythm theory. I do make a note not to skip anything though (just 2x speed on some things lol), as I do find Josh has some useful tidbits scattered across videos. Seems like I’m almost through the end of basic notes and rhythms, so I hope I’ll be able to learn more new things specific to playing bass coming up!
I do find that I am the type of person who needs some reinforcement in a progress sense in order to get practice done, so I do think this course fits me in that way. I feel more wanting to pick up the bass if I know there’s a new video to watch every day instead of doing the same repetitive practice exercises. Although I do know eventually it’ll have to come to that, just making sure that I won’t get burnt out in the beginning
Glad you pulled the trigger. I myself played bass in my late teens - early 20’s, then quit for 25 years. I bought a bass and after some very embarrassing moments, I was able to play songs like Billie Jean even before the course, BUT…I feel with the course I’m learning much more than I already knew; proper technique, attention to playing, how to make things easier for myself, reading music (I wrote the first verse of a song, the other day, with notes, always been a tabs guy), and many other things that I’m sure I will only realize later in my journey.
When I was looking trying to figure out which on-line lessons to go with I found Bass Buzz to be easier to understand directly from the start. The other ones I will try after I feel comfortable with BB but BB walks you through it so well.
It’s true. I’m sitting at my desk on a lunch break and watching this guy in theses orange themed videos. After a few days…“Y’know, this guy’s got me convinced I can do this…I’ll take a flyer on the BassBuzz course. Just need to get a bass and an amp…” That was 3 years ago. I’m a busy guy with my career, but I’ve enjoyed this journey. And the forums here are simply fantastic.
The thing that made my mind up about B2B over any other course is that you learn actual songs, like popular ones and it introduced me to other genres I’d never have considered playing like blues or funk. I found those lessons quite fun.
