Scott bass lesson vs thebassist.net pick?

To put in my 5 cent:
I dislike Scott with a passion. He’s a showboat, talks too much about himself and explains very little.

6 Likes

I get what you’re feeling. He might be a really nice guy but his vids are so irritating. I guess that’s the youtube / instagram culture at work …

5 Likes

My guess is that you just nailed it, @Ed . . . :wink: :roll_eyes:

Cheers
Joe

5 Likes

i looked at scott’s lessons and while i think his videos as just general information/specific gear review/etc are reasonably OK, i did not like how he teaches — and i say this as a professional tenured educator. very hard to follow, very unclear goals, very much about him. part of why i went with B2B is the way @JoshFossgreen breaks things down into small nuggets with very clear parameters and very defined goals for each small lesson works really well. the way josh bases his pedagogy on (i think?) ‘atomic habits’ makes a lot of sense for learning something that is a physical ‘craft’ like a musical instrument. i think as i advance past B2B, scott’s videos would be more valuable.

i also like studybass.com — a bit more complex/dense than B2B but his approach is quite good, especially considering it is all free.

6 Likes

I did a lot of research before signing up for the B2B course and I could not find anything better for online learning the Bass than the B2B course.

IMHO jumping around and paying for additional courses has never made sense to me. In other words, finish one before starting something else, especially if you are a beginner. Sure you can check out other courses or watch free YouTube videos but you should not let it interfere with your progression through the B2B course. :+1:

I wonder how many people on the forum have purchased additional courses before finishing B2B, that they have not completed, or even started. :thinking:

1 Like

Yes, that’s about the time you really have to start working harder on things, learn more theory and write/improvise parts. I think Scott said his expectation was that it would take about 2-3 months for each level and about 5 years to complete the whole players path which I assume also means doing the relevant courses for each level.

I would say that B2B is a better course for someone who is new to bass and esp if they’re totally new to music. My biggest “complaint” is that I was done to fast :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: but I already had a fair background in music and played guitar for a few years before playing bass.

If you do the players path, he plays through every song and then does an analysis of it with performance tips. In addition to that, every song has a course booklet which goes through the song and any theory which applies to it. There’s also a section which lists recommended courses that you should do.

In addition to players path, they’ve recently added “learning pathways” which is a more guided approach to learning. Currently there are courses on walking bass, Soul R&B and sight reading. The first two are new, the sight reading course is currently the Phil Mann course that already existed but they will be redoing that in the future and adding new courses.

Yes, SBL is hard, you have to work at it but if you want a fairly advanced music education, everything you need is there. I did B2B, then started the players path on level 3, went back to level 2 and now I’m on level 6… I’ve taken about 6 months “off” the PP to work on theory/composition and to do the SBL jazz course so I’ll be back on that soon.

2 Likes

Nah not for me @sshoihet
Scotts too much like the annoying jerk in the pub that always ends up falling into someone’s fist at some point in the night.
Hopefully he’ll realise at some point it’s not all about him . If you can look past the self appreciation he does actually have something to offer

1 Like

I agree with you - there are a lot of courses that don’t seem to have a clearly defined start and end point, nor desired learning outcomes - how do you know if you’re doing ok or on your way to achieving? So, to your quote - if you like this then you’d like Ariane Cap’s courses. She teaches like this - clear outcomes at the beginning of each lesson and she is a Tiny Habits coach so incorporates a lot of this and learning psychology into her courses. I’ve come on in leaps and bounds doing her Music Theory course. First picked up a bass in May and joined a band in November - I’m no Flea but I’m very happy with my progress so far.

This is the most honest review is SBL I have seen. I appreciate this feedback.

I know others on here are judging it against B2B, which I had done when choosing between SBL and B2B a year or so ago. I did the SBL trial, and at the same time tried Josh’s free YouTube vids to make a decision on where to start. I chose B2B because of Josh’s teaching style and energy which was very engaging. No regrets, I’m fact I highly recommend it.

I was an intermediate bass player in the 90’s and in a band… or so I thought. During B2B, I realized, not only did I lose everything from my hiatus, but that I didn’t know $hit.

B2B was “the” best starting point for bass, hands down. I went through the course, then went back through the “quiz” in course extras (badass and superbadass), reviewed anything I was either hazy or stuck on.

Unfortunately life got in the way again, however my hiatus was much shorter, but I was removed for about 6mo. Looking back, I think the real reason is that I didn’t have a plan setup for my continued education. B2B had structure, and was a way for me to stay on track.

I had the itch to learn again, and went trough B2B In it’s entirety (well, maybe starting at section 3). I made sure to nail each and every lesson (except maybe for 2 fast exercises that I got 99% - I didn’t want to kill my motivation so I continued). I went hardcore for 10 days. Re-learned all the things I forgot, picked up a ton of stuff I didn’t the first time, got my fingers working again, and now If there was a B2B course 2, I would have started that. However, there isn’t, and I determined that the only way I could stay on course is to find another program.

This was a long way to lead up to SBL :slightly_smiling_face:

I found players path, and despite my feelings from SBL a year or so ago, I decided to give it a shot. Granted, I’m only on day 1, but I feel like Scott watched B2B and decided structure was lacking. Even his instruction on the lessons are more like Josh’s than some of the other content. There are things I don’t agree with like “don’t rush through the lessons, if it takes you 8 weeks for one song, that’s ok”. Wait, what? 8 weeks for a 1min 20sec song with tab and music notation?

I will say, I don’t think I would be as equipped to tackle this or any other course without first taking B2B. Im not sure I could start this without it. The cool thing is that even know I started on lesson1, there are things I am thinking of that Josh went over that is helping me right off the bat. Scott is also giving insight from a different perspective, so that’s cool too!

Just wondering if you still have the same feeling after a few more weeks of SBL

2 Likes