Maybe stop practicing for a few weeks and enjoy other stuff?
And then learn your favourite songs with new motivation!
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Bad band experience. Yeah, sometimes you gotta try a few before you find the right one.
As far as playing, putting pressure on yourself to perform at a certain level is a sure fire way to kill the joy. Besides, you don’t have to be virtuosic. Look at Johnny Cash’s Hurt. The man could barely play, and recorded an iconic song. Powerful. Emotional. Music is about conveying a message.
You got this.
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Hann—
Just curious: How many times do you estimate you’ve thought to yourself, over all the time you’ve been at it, “I JUST CAN’T play”? Quite a few times, maybe? Lots of times? If so, you may have sabotaged your own efforts. I know, as I did exactly that for years. Now I know how to not do it, and knowing that changes so, so much.
I expounded on this in an earlier post in this thread. It goes into why sometimes, no matter the effort we put into something, we always seem to come up a bit short, and why we nearly always remain befuddled as to the cause. Scroll up and have a gander at it, should you be so inclined. And if you have that gander, know that it’s not just something I pulled out of my posterior; real science dudes who study real human cognition are the ones who came up with this stuff.
I totally get what you’re saying about “divine spark” and talent and all that. And I must respectfully but vehemently disagree with you. There is no divine being who will tap you on the shoulder and grant you bass-playing (or any other kind of) abilities. If you’re waiting for lightning to strike you and morph you into Uber Bass God, you’re going to be waiting a long time.
And talent isn’t real. Sorry, but it’s not. Talent, as we use the term, is just the result of disciplined, consistent practice over time. I won’t deny that some people seem to learn certain things more readily than others do, but that isn’t due to any inborn or spark-inflicted talent or lack thereof; they just have a slightly different brain. No divine lightning bolt has struck them.
While I wasn’t there to witness the event, I can pretty much guarantee that the first time Jaco Pastorius plugged in a bass and wanked around on it, it sounded like twice-baked crap. Pretty sure that was the case for the second time too, and quite a few times after that. But I do know, from reading about the man, that he worked his ass off to not sound like twice-baked crap and, lo and behold, he became one of the greatest, if not the greatest, electric bassists in the world. He didn’t need talent. He just needed disciplined, consistent practice over time. Just like the rest of us do if we want to reach our goals, whatever they look like.
Don’t get discouraged or give up because you lack “talent.” You don’t. You can’t lack something that doesn’t exist.
Onward, forward, and best of luck to you.
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I understand how you feel. But please consider that what you call “incompetence” is a self-imposed descriptor.
For example, I’ve played with people who thought the exact opposite: they considered themselves good when they actually sucked in reality! True story. But the difference between them and you is that they were happy and satisfied with their capabilities, or lack thereof. They were happy warriors.
Regarding the term “divine spark” (talent), this was argued ad nauseum in another thread.
Personally, in my lifetime I have known too many people who were legitimately talented to dismiss the term as bullshit. The argument that those people were not great when they began their individual pursuits of a discipline like writing, musicianship, art, or lutherie is specious, at best.
Of course, they weren’t born great. Hell, Batman wasn’t born Batman! 
But I contend that they were born with a natural affinity for what they ended up being great at. It came easier or, again, more natural to them than to the next person. Plus, upon feeling that magnetism to whichever discipline attracted them, they worked their asses off to master it. In other words, the process started when attraction met whatever degree of natural facility for that person, then grew exponentially with each and every challenge and subsequent success. Or failure. That’s the key: attraction to a discipline turns into an obsession to work harder to surmount all challenges.
I recently watched a documentary about standup comedians. It was stunning to learn about the life they lead. Regardless of whether any one of them ultimately turns out to be a star, the literal years of time, constant traveling, lack of love life, bad wages, bad food, bad audiences, etc. is more than worth it to them…as long as they can practice their craft. Every comic in the documentary said they didn’t possess any other marketable skills, which, of course, isn’t true. They just knew they didn’t want to do anything else but practice their craft.
Were each of these comics great, or would they ever be great? Hell, no. But each one was happiest when they were doing what they were driven to do, despite the insecurities and doubts they felt when they failed. The difference between them and a wannabe that might have quit was they continued working at the craft.
I don’t know you, but I’ve read your many thoughtful comments in this forum over the years. I think it’s safe to say you are a good, sensitive person. Like everyone else here, something drew you to the bass. And that draw has driven you to study, practice and work very hard for years. You deserve a vast amount of credit for all that.
But just be aware that you are your harshest critic, which is natural. I know I’m my own, as well.
Give yourself some grace. Maybe take a restful break from playing. Maybe just slow down your regimen a bit to recognize how much you’ve learned and why you were excited to start learning in the first place.
It’s easy to be self-critical to the point that it can be a a self-fulfilling trap. Recognize that you have done so much, because you have. Be kind to yourself. We all suck sometimes (maybe often! ). But we all sound pretty damn good sometimes. Embrace those times. Peace and best wishes.
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One of the best covers of all time, Reznor gushes about it himself.
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I totally agree with @MikeC 's sentiment. It sounds like the pressure you’re putting on yourself is spoiling the enjoyment of playing @Hann.
You’re practicing a LOT and say you’ve been told your technique is good. You’re probably better than you give yourself credit for 
I hope you can re-discover the enjoyment that drew you in the first place.
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Not knowing how to practice. Cognitive science has solutions to learn faster and perform better. Look up Molly Gerbrian.
Thank you for your words.
I will definitely not give up, because I have spent too much time on it, I am already too far.
And I do not want to take a break, because I will lose efficiency, but maybe I will let go of the intensity a little.
I hope that one day these scattered puzzles will start to fit together and I will move forward. For now, it is hard for me to say why (in my opinion) I am not making further progress.
The story with the band is a topic for a separate thread, but I do not know if it is better not to forget about it. Conclusions drawn, lessons learned, experience gained, moving forward
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Hi Josh,
Good question because I started the course a couple of years ago but never finished. So I got to the slap bass module and then stopped. The reasons were as follows:
- I struggled with when you were introducing the fretting part. You have fixed this which is fantastic. I am now redoing the course and finishing module 4.
- When I got to the bass slap part, it was what I was looking forward to the most as I am very much into funk, but I just got frustrated. It was about 20% of the reason I stoppped.
- Another 20% was that I had stretched my hand too much and I needed to rest it, but that rest period became more than a rest period.
- The other 60% was stuff in my life that either meant I was too exhausted to continue or just was so down, I was not feeling it.
- Limited access to other musicians who I felt comfortable playing with. A lot of potential musicians in my areas were half my age and/or were into different types of music. Not a cause per se, but would have helped greatly if I had been playing with others, since I would have felt I would not have wanted to let the others down.
Those are my reasons and doing the course again, with the refresh, has been fantastic. I came back to start the course from scratch again and was unaware of the upgrade, so that was a lovely surprise.
All the best
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I know I’ll get better in time, but patience is the key for me. I so BADLY want to play the bass, somtimes I find myself rushing to play songs, but dont have the expertise. I call it my "self inflicted " gun shot wounds. I’m enjoyng the course.
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For me, the number 1 reason I am not happy with my progress is unreasonable expectations.
I practice 3+ hours per day, every day. I am halfway through the course after about a month, and I also keep playing miscellaneous tabs, and arrangements I make in Guitar Pro, but it never sounds good enough for me. This is because everyone around me is a far better bass player than I am, and it goes without saying that when I browse YouTube, I watch virtuosos perform works of extraordinary complexity.
The logical part of me is well aware of the fact that the people I talk to on a daily basis have 10 or even 20 years of experience playing music and it’s an unfair comparison. The emotional part of me is having trouble accepting that I am just not as proficient right now. I also keep thinking that we live in the age of information, and we have better entry-level instruments and access to comprehensive music resources than anyone else who came before us.
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Ironically, these are both helps and hindrances.
In the days before the internet, newbie players were under no illusion of learning to play virtually overnight. There were extremely few, if any, teachers and only the random few video tapes of instruction.
The only way to learn to play was to use our ears to pick out snippets of bass lines, then fumble around on the neck to (hopefully) find some of the notes. It was a tedious, inefficient and cumbersome way to learn. But countless players did just that. Including those who would grow into being the stars of their generation.
What every one of those bass forebears had in common was determination and impatient patience. Determination was a pure necessity, or else they would simply quit. Patience was also a necessity because inefficient learning takes time.
One other important factor in the progress of pre-Internet players was the boundless energy and optimism of youth. Nothing was impossible, no matter how long it took to accomplish.
Today, all the teachers, instruments, gear and tabs are easily found everywhere. It seems that the ease of finding such resources leads to new players possibly expecting that playing facility is equally easy to come by. But not necessarily.
Determination and patience are still very much the necessary, time-honored keys to the playing highway.
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This is the way.
I was like you and smashed the course out in 3 weeks but I did two months of youtube vids with lots of Josh before starting the course, and now for 8 months I’m averaging around 16 - 20 hours a week. I’ve had to take a couple days off a couple times because the fingers said so.
Your on the road to feeling real good about it, success…
This biz about being better faster and not getter better as fast as you think it should happen is the most common thought anyone with real desire and want has, and from your post it seems your desire is true and you sound like you really want it.
Hammer the hours out asap and get your first 500 hours asap.
Many of the posts talk about excuses and reasons while others point out self behavioral observations.
Then there’s those that talk about enjoying the journey and its not a competition…
Its a personal competition to me just as all my arts endeavors have been.
If a person la de da’s anything they are trying to get good at they won’t be good at it.
Manic attack that thang is the way I roll, go hard or go home…
The Reason People Don’t Get Better at Bass is they don’t practice enough.
I read and post during my take 5 moments, feel the burn… 
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There are many different reasons some players don’t see as much progress as they would like. Putting in time is always a go-to answer, but as has been expressed in various posts above, sometimes even extended practicing over months or years is still not yielding the desired or expected results. Calling factors in people’s lives “excuses” for not feeling as accomplished as they want despite their best efforts is dismissive of valid circumstances that might not apply to you, but they still exist for others.
Regardless, the point of this thread is for @JoshFossgreen to gather information from his students. Each person’s input is valid to a teacher who is striving to come up with a way to help those who need it most.
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There is only love for all with never ill intention, any feelings which get hurt is not personal or intended.
My approach has been for bass and other arts that I wanted to get good at, doing it took precedence above feelings and pain. To be good was all that mattered.
Sometimes the depth of meaning in a persons words are more or less than another’s.
ie, regardless of what they say how much do they mean it…
Bass is doable to a fairly decent proficiency degree for anyone who seeks to be okay or good but the consistent hours have to be put in without significant gaps.
At my level it seems the more I practice the better I get, so that’s my reference.
More practice continues to equal improvement, everyday.
I wish everyone complete success to get to where they truly want to be…
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I think one of the joys of music for me, is that it’s very much not a competition in any shape or form.
I have improved by putting in the work, but I’m not competing with anyone. I’m just having fun making noise.
Ain’t nobody on this forum getting famous through bass.
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Semantics
Regardless I’m having a great experience while at the same time looking forward to tomorrows practice, and famous has never been considered.
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I love music. Making music still feels like some kind of magic to me. I love that I’m in any way a music wizard. Bass is the music wizardry that makes me happiest. I want to get good enough to make music with other people and make other people happy. That’s the beginning and end of any music related competition to me.
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• Not practicing enough/not having a clear plan instead of just noodling.
• Mentally holding yourself back.
• Lack of focus on your problem areas/trying to progress too fast.
• Lack of fretboard knowledge/theory.
• Realising my “extremely hard efforts to learn” weren’t as extreme as I thought. Have to practice more/rethink my approach.
Last one became obvious, when trying to learn a song, where there’s a few fast chromatic runs. No matter if I could play it at home, in a band setting, I always messed up, until I rearranged things a bit. Now it’s a lot more manageable, the speed is the same, but the fingering is slightly different and I now know I will be able to slay it.
These are of course what I feel are my personal issues and I’m working hard to overcome them.
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Well, I’m in the same boat as you. Maybe try a different approach? I was having a lot of problems memorizing a song I have to learn. It’s a quite simple one, but no matter how many times I played it, I couldn’t get through it without having the pages in front of me, which isn’t very rock n roll in a live setting.
So I sat down, listened to the song, wrote down all the changes. And all of a sudden I was like “why was this hard to memorize, it’s a fairly simple pattern?”. I’m starting to refer to this as “shopping list sindrome”; if I don’t write it up, I will forget to buy half of the things I should buy. If I write it up, I can leave the list at home and remember everything at the store.
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