What is understood now about performance coaching is that someone’s self image needs to be bought up to the same level as performance. The level of disbelief otherwise can hamstring what is going on.
I went to a State championships and on my very first Rapid Fire event, shot a half match score that would see me enter the competition at State Squad level.
People thought I deliberately entered in the lowest grade.
At the same competition, using the same card for two shots, I put two pellets straight through the same hole in the dead center of the target. The judge watched me do it and then used the pellet gauge to prove that the hole was only as big as ONE pellet.
Later on, I put 10 shots into 11mm at 25 metres with a rapid fire pistol.
I wasn’t mentally prepared to accept that I could own that level of performance and had a lot of expectations and disbelief from myself AND other people.
Even if I made it to Olympic selection and got to Atlanta, the guys who were going to be there were almost inhuman.
In Australia, if you don’t win, you’re a loser. I wasn’t prepared to lift my training routine up even higher to deal with that sort of thing in such a short time, with inconsistent brilliant results.
It stopped being fun and looked like an impending very public failure.
At that point I met my girlfriend.
That was the end of having spare time.
Two friends with approx. 50 years guitar playing experience tried to help me get started. It’s funny they both started the same way. "When I play a lead I do this a lot and sometimes I just kind of go from A to A minor back to A then A’. " Josh started with this is an E string and this is how you move your right hand to make it ring.
A teacher is a special individual with patience and empathy. A great performer is qualified to teach but not necessarily able. Bob Knight got more out of less talent than perhaps any other basketball coach in history. He sat on the bench in college. Many excellent baseball managers were borderline major league players.
I guess what drives the best is only marginally related to what makes a great teacher. At least the guys at the other sites are trying. They know what they are doing they just aren’t teachers.
Knight was a great coach, but explosive. Had he been a band leader/music teacher, he’d have been Terence Fletcher 
Now I’ve got this image stuck in my mind of Coach with his face as red as his sweater in my face screaming," I told you to mute the open strings". We are definitely better off with Josh.
I am not a fan of SBL at all.
He is an accomplished bass player no doubt. But his teaching style is just not eduactional. What bummed me out the most: that dude is talking way too much .
Well, we have to thank Scott for explaining to us what to do if you find yourself at LAX security while only wearing one shoe.
How would we ever be able to get through life without that?
@JoshFossgreen: “Hello, and welcome to the Billie Jean Fast Workout! Let’s rock!”
The entire forum population: “Not my tempo.”
i have to say when i 1st hit youtube to find a teacher. freaking google sent me tons of sbl my 1st impression was that he seemed self absorbed. and i hated the tone he liked for his basses to me they sounded the same. the only redeeming quality about sbl was he did the history of bass players so of course i liked that but even that got old with time because he was trying to sell himself more than the persons ability or talent then one day i had given up on looking and was clicking on songs i liked and watching persons doing solos of them and learning things in that fashion. when in the split screen i seen this guy in orange doing a lesson. im thinking who is this joker! but thankfully i clicked it i was watching him and laughing the whole time. and the next thing i know im doing a great song. and im relaxed it wasnt hard so i accepted josh as my teacher his ugly banana and all sbl has its place with a certain niche of people and badass bass has its niche of people it choosing the right teacher is hard. getting blisters on your thumb from learning to slap the bass. now that is way to easy! i love the community here. also they accept me for the idiot i am. and we all get along fine lol. good luck and take the time to get to know people. this is a good crowd belly up to the bar and order a round for everyone. and who knows i may post a story or two about a great bass player you love who knows!
man i dont do facebook that is a pity i bet i miss some great stuff im kinda bummed after reading this lol hope your doing ok pam is the new bass working out?
Correct weight!
Well said
Initially when I was first looking I checked out his free stuff only to conclude, a) he seemed to like showing off his friends . b) He was more orientated to players with experience.
I first went with Talkingbass beginner course, he waffles on a bit but informative but about half way through the content just seemed to drop off, one entire module dedicated to muting strings and his lessons aint short and snappy like Josh’s. Again I think he is for the players with experience.
Then you discover Josh, this is another planet short snappy lessons progressive build up, I get the impression he teaches one thing yet drip feeds other stuff in there too. The back up team are brilliant too, so helpful. I had a problem connecting (at my end nothing to do with them) . The back up team talked me through options to resolve the problem on my computer!.
I won’t talk about Billie bloody Jean though, my fingers are possessed when I try that.
I do like SBL, but I had a very similar experience as first as a total beginner. The first lesson I was directed to for beginners was like 45 minutes of making sure your strap is the correct height. And then it seemed to jump from that to doing a walking bass line with an A diminished flat 13 arpeggio and I was totally lost. I do like Scott and I find the community really supportive, though. Now that I have some more time with the bass in my hands, I get more out of it.
That said, I felt an instant connection to Josh and his way of teaching. I also love the format of B2B and the shorter videos with little snippets. Scott’s videos tend to go on pretty long, and while there’s a lot of great info in there, they could all stand to be a bit shorter. As a solo working parent, I appreciate the shorter videos/lessons because it’s a lot easier to find 2 or 3 periods of 15-20 minutes per day than it is to find a block of 45 minutes to an hour.
Maybe I will like SBL more in the future when I’m not a beginner anymore but as a teacher Scott overall just isn’t at all on my wavelength. He also seems a bit self absorbed. On the one hand it’s really nice that he met all these famous people but on the other hand it often feels more like bragging than informative. Could not have him as teacher.
Regarding the structure of the B2B course I would like to add that the shorter lessons also have more benefits than just the time factor. Josh calls this learning principle “bite sized chunks”, but there are a lot of names for it and I think it’s ideal for a learning course. There’s the time factor you mentioned - It’s way easier to pick up the bass for 15 minutes than 45. Although I usually end up playing at least 45 I probably would play less if had to play 45 minutes from the start. Or at least reserve 45 minutes of time for the video. And in that case I would get more annoyed at Scotts monologuing.
I think it’s also way easier to learn apart from the time factor, because it’s easier adjustable in the way how much you want to take in at once. Especially in the first modules I rushed through, because there was not really anything new for me to take in and so it was just a refresher mostly, but the closer I got to two digit modules the slower I went on because I had to. I still really can’t play octaves for a long time. A 45 minutes format could easily mean that I can’t keep up after 20 and have to rewatch the video or save the position all of which is not ideal.
Another benefit is that one can easily use the course as a reference to look up things or practice again, because If I want to revisit a specific lesson I don’t have to seek through the video to find it. It’s just there.
I’m probably late replying, but, yeah, everything that’s been said about SBL is pretty true. After finishing B2B here, I did end up trying SBL, and with all their spam, there is a coupon in there to get a year for USD $125 or so, which I did. 9 months later, I’ll say that, I’m not going to renew, but, I did feel like I got my money’s worth.
Take Josh’s B2B course first, for sure. B2B is solid gold, worth more than just $200 in my opinion. Scott skips over a lot of fundamentals, but there is some good intermediate stuff he throws in that is helpful. And the courses take deep dives into certain specific topics of interest. I also liked that there are multiple instructors there, not just Scott, so, you get a sampling of different styles of instruction.
But yeah, don’t expect all the goodies like playalongs, instructional details, and other things that you get spoiled with from B2B!
Good to hear from you @Vik.
Not sure how I missed this one, I think we were posting at the same time. Answer below.
Sounds interesting tho.
You are not the only one. I have never had a FB myself, or SnapChat, or instagram, just don’t like or want it. Needing it, idk, seems like may be some good stuff, but doubt I will.
I absolutely love BassBuzz and Josh’s style of teaching and think it is one of the best courses I have ever taken, and I still refer back to some of the lessons. The course brought me from absolute beginner to advanced beginner with enough basic knowledge to be able play a few songs and to have a basic understanding of music and of my instrument. If Josh had offered a next level course I would have signed up for it the minute I finished the beginner course! That being said, I then went online and sampled various bass lessons with Yonit of Lessonface, Luke’s Bass Lessons, Mark’s bass lessons and Scotts Bass Lessons (SBL), all offering great content. I picked up a few things here and there, but it was too haphazard an approach for me. I ended up signing up for the SBL Practice Accelerator which is an intense eight week course (I’ll do it in 16 weeks or so because I’m still working full time and I’m old) which is teaching me at a much deeper level than BassBuzz did. BassBuzz was awesome in that it truly provided all the basics needed to get started and have fun, and that may be enough for some people. I needed something deeper, and this particular SBL program is teaching me how to become a musician. I’m learning how to practice in a focused way, and though in some ways I feel like I’ve regressed, it’s mainly because I didn’t actually know what I didn’t know! For example there’s an entire module on technique that I practice nearly every day (fingerings, hammer-ons, pull-offs, 1st and 4th finger slides, speed drills, etc.), and major 7th, minor 7th, dominant 7th and diminished arpeggios played in first, second and fourth positions over a I-VI-ii-V chord progression with the aim of learning my fretboard like the back of my hand. This course is really going to help me to learn fingerboard visualization, technique, groove and time, language and transcription, diatonic harmony, and genres and repertoire with an emphasis on having fun while playing. Bottom line is that different teaching styles and teachers and content appeal to different people and it’s all about finding what works best for you.
So, funny thing happened a little while ago.
I went to buy a Boss Pedal Tuner and Boss Bass OD pedal from a guy on Offer Up. Great deal, both for $60.
Anyway, he was a gigging bass player (EB MM Stingray I literally quivered when I saw it) who performs a few times a month. We got to talking and I was telling him that I had just begun playing after about a 15-20 year lay off from playing guitar.
He said, yeah, he is always learning, and just started doing online courses on this site “Scott something”
I said “SBL”
He said “yeah, it’s really good, lots of great stuff there.”
I explained how I started, and after a few days in the beginner FREE courses, I was doing great on one lesson, and the next lesson was about a year past me. I did say that if I were more advanced, I am sure I would get a lot more out of it, and that I may go back, at least to the free stuff.
I did tell him about BB, but B2B might be a little lite for him, but I may get him here in the community is he has time. Really nice guy.
I thought it funny since my last post on here before I left to get the pedals were in this thread.
To be fair, Scott does highly recommend that you break things down to the smallest bits to learn in little chunks, plus that more frequent “shorter” practice that is structured is more beneficial, by far, then longer practice sessions once or twice a week.
Just saying it to be completely fair.
I like Scott a lot,
But…
I LOVE BB AND JOSH.
I might be going against the grain but I’ve found SBL - “Players Path” to be a really good way of developing my skills. I love Josh and B2B and I couldn’t have got started on bass without him. I’ve gone from rank beginner to slightly less rank beginner and I have enjoyed the progress I have made. It really allows me to switch off from work to focus and get into the bass (far better than yoga and meditation have done for me!).
In addition to B2B, I’ve also liked the variety that SBL brings to my practice. You can always fast forward the waffle and there is a lot of great stuff on there. In fact it is a whole ecosystem and a very commercial business generating huge amounts of spam - which is what might put many off.
Mark over at Talking Bass is also very good but a little too serious for me. But each to their own. It would be a tad boring if we were all the same and all liked the same stuff.
I had drafted a reply earlier mentioning “Players Path”, but you beat me to it 
For everyone with the stamina to read through it, here is my take (almost as verbose as Scott himself):
Like several others here who have finished B2B in the past, I was looking for something to fill that void, and also ended up trying out SBL. It really is a very different beast than B2B - so, really hard to compare.
First of all, I think people need to look beyond the weekly free YT videos that SBL put out - they are slick, informative, entertaining, but ultimately just free candy to lure new customers into the shop. So, don’t expect too much depth or new insights here.
But, once you get inside, there really is a huge amount of material there. In fact, so much that - especially as a beginner/intermediate player - you feel a bit like a deer caught in the headlights… blinded and pretty much unable to move. The sheer breadth of offers makes you want to sample all of it right away and at the same time, but in the end, you don’t dive deep anywhere and always feel like you are missing out because yet another new course has come up.
So, unless you know exactly what you want or need, then you are very much lost. However, if you DO know what you want or need, there is a lot to find there (a LOT) and I would say the quality in general is very good (from the contents to the production value).
What is annoying - and what many of you have pointed out - is Scott’s tendency to talk and talk and talk… many segments could have been done in 15 minutes, but you have to sit through 45 minutes instead. While I always thought my students (not music students) have short attention spans these days, I have to admit it is very hard to sit through 45 minutes of exercises and rambling and not lose focus (and, worse, interest) at some point. And then his noodling on the bass… yeah, he is good, but he is pretty much always playing the same licks, the same style and that is also a bit annoying. I think Scott knows all this to some extent, and thus also has a whole range of guest teachers (with very different teaching styles).
Having said all that, SBL has just announced something new that indeed might be a real game changer in the online teaching business. They call it the Player’s Path and it consists of 9 different levels, from true beginner to very accomplished bass player. The core idea is to utilize gamification to make learning stuff more fun. That idea is not new in itself, but I think they hit on a great way to implement it.
From what I can glean, each of the 9 levels has 6 (short) songs (different styles and thus requiring you to work with different aspects of playing bass; all composed for the purpose (although often “in the style of…/reminiscent of…”) and played by a pro band) and you are to choose three of them and learn to play those until you nail them. I guess there will be badges along the way, but as you start, there is sheet music and tabs, and you can play along at various tempi, as well as some core concepts and instructions on what to pay attention to (and less wordy, too!). And then it offers links to other SBL contents for more study. Once you feel you have nailed the songs, there is some kind of test to let you advance to the next level (have not tested this yet, bit probably very crucial how this is done). The songs sound great, are varied and seem like a ton of fun to get under your belt.
Having tried this a tiny little bit, I realized how much I missed the structure that B2B offered - coming home from work and sitting down with the bass for 20 minutes or so working through another module and lesson - that was fun and you had those little “success moments” along the way and felt you had accomplished something. After that, I was really wandering (almost aimlessly) doing some finger exercises here, some arpeggios there, and a little bit of playalongs perhaps (mostly half-heartedly), but, really, to keep up some kind of regiment or discipline without a clear plan is very tough (at least for me). And, this is ultimately where and why many might stop again learning and playing an instrument altogether.
So, not trying to defend, champion or sell SBL over B2B, but I guess every online instructor is facing some real challenges in how to keep students motivated and how to check on their students progress, and how to provide the best feedback, encouragement and, not least, reward for goals achieved. And SBL might really have hit on something there…