I started this course on Feb 1st and going the fast track route am about to finish it. Like many I’m going to go through the course a second time with a slightly different approach so I thought I’d share my ideas with you and ask if you did anything different the second time around:
I made a note of all the exercises I struggled with (about fifteen, all together, mainly the Fast workouts) so this time around I will not be moving on until I’ve nailed them (that includes Billy Jean)
I will be ignoring tab and attempt to read music properly
Whenever I feel it would work/be appropriate I will do each lesson with slap as well as normal plucking (plucking - is that the right word? sounds wrong ).
In my eagerness to move on to the next lesson I never stopped to play along to the full songs n any exercises. I will play the full songs each time the second time around.
I will be swapping bass. Like many (I suspect) I rewarded myself with a new bass when I got close to the end of this course. I used my Jazz Bass almost exclusively on the course but next time around I will swap and use my Spector. In this way, I hope my Spector will become as intuitive to me as my Jazz.
I suspect the second time around the course will take me closer to six months rather than one but I feel I will benefit greatly. The other thing I will be doing is taking the Talking Bass ‘Chord Tone Essentials’ course in tandem so I will let you all know how that goes.
Does anybody have any other strategies for their second outing with Josh?
When I went back over the course, I made my own little “textbook” of it with notes and some cross referencing. Watching and playing the course is one thing, but pausing it and writing down some of the major points as you go helps to reinforce the concepts a bit better, I think.
Ignoring tab and just looking at the music notation is something I want to do as well.
As for other ideas, you might try doing some improv over some of the easier lessons, or all of them. This might mean you need to figure out the key, which is also good practice.
Lastly, you might want to do one of the “First 50 songs” from the Course Extras each week or something just to add some variety as its your 2nd time through.
It’s a really cool course, and Josh gives SO MANY tools to explore. So certainly going through it again is great, really nail down all the concepts because they will serve you throughout your whole bass journey. Chord essentials is great too, that knowledge will really serve you.
The biggest thing that will help you is applying what you learned in some real world ways. So think of B2B as college, but then you get hired at a job. It’s different than college but some of the knowledge really helps you along.
I’d do things like find drum tracks and play along to them, but make your own line to it. Even if it’s just a 3 note progression. Play the three notes. Then remember the triads lesson, play the three notes but each followed by their triad. Play 3 measures of the thing you did and the after the 4th one add your own fill.
There was a thread @Gio made a while back with a backing track and no bass line, but he gives the main note progression. Doing your own line playing along to that is great practice. Doing things like that you can look at the tools Josh provided and see how they apply in real time.
So I’d say after each section, see if there is a free form exercise where you can implement the skill. After the chugging exercise, put on a drum beat and chug some 8th notes, but the ones you feel like playing, and then do on so fourth for following lessons.
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