Struggles right now are left-hand related. Long long ago, when I was 4, I got my left pinky finger caught in a door and nearly took the tip off. Thankfully, I didn’t, but from then on it was always a little deformed. The tip curls back quite a bit - getting it to curl the right way and press down with any kind of strength is difficult. Throw in the fact that I’m left-handed (even though I play the bass right-handed) and you have a lifetime of left pinky finger woes. So far I’ve been working around it by keeping my ring finger up close to it for “support”. Not sure if it will be a permanent workaround, or just a “one weird trick” to use until I strengthen it, but we’ll see as time goes on.
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Many experienced players play like this, they even support the ring finger with the middle finger.
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Thankfully all my other fingers are strong. I lift weights (olympic style weightlifting mostly) so my grip has always been pretty good. Except that stupid left pinky. It just gets in the way. 
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I am almost done with the Bassbuzz lessons. I don’t know what to study next. I am not in a band or playing with anyone.
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Do the Hollywood Yakuza sort of thing - chop! 
Seriously, though, I have led a very active life and all of my fingers and one thumb were dislocated at one point or another. They’re all dysfunctional to some degree. And fairly stubby at that. I find that the trick is to keep them moving and do warm up exercises regularly, and despite these shortcomings I’m progressing nicely along B2B. Well, for a given value of progressing and nicely.
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I’ve gotten through the “fast” first lesson and plan to practice it before moving on, but my biggest issue is using my middle finger on the E string instead of my index. I’m trying to break myself of the habit but it isn’t easy.
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Nope, and that’s why the first lesson is just chugging the E. It takes time 
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So what I am struggling with is what plan of action to take.
I am currently on Module 6 Lesson 1 Part 2.
So far I have enjoyed the lessons, learning lots and Josh is great and all that. But the workouts since the dreaded Billie Jean has been going downhill I use to be able to do all three workout speeds and be at 85-90% on fast so as Josh said I would continue moving forward.
Now I am struggling for the slow workouts, I mean I get through them but not 100% and not pretty at all I feel like my fretting hand is not where it should be at all… here’s my dilemma do I continue moving forward and finish the course and then go back through it a second time or do I start the course over when I get to the end of Module 8 (halfway point) or do I spend more time on each lesson before moving on.
I have been doing one lesson a day and then practicing the workouts a few times each speed so like 30-45 minutes session each day.
I know I should do what I feel I should do and everyone is different but any insight would be great, thanks!
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All of those sound appropriate… I had a similar situation, what I did was slow down, meaning that I didn’t do a lesson and all 3 workouts in one day, depending on the lesson I might just stay on the slow one for a day and then the next day put effort on the medium…
it was frustrating because I really wanted to keep the pace that I had initially plus keep the pace of the 50 songs challenge, well that wasn’t realistic so I took a couple of days off and then got back and lessen the burden, this is to be fun and I don’t have a deadline… now I’m more satisfied with how the course is going…. Just started slapping and I can tell that this module will take me the longest yet, and that’s ok
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@Reo Thanks for the input I appreciate it! I will keep moving forward and maybe repeat the workouts a few days before moving on to another lesson to make sure I am more comfortable with them. I have been splitting the workouts as well so some days I do the slow 3 or 4 times and then the medium 5 times the next and so on…
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slow down the slow, instead of trying to do it in any sort of ‘time’, try memorizing finger movements. Do a bar at a time, nail it, do the next bar, nail it, add it to the first bar.
Go backwards a lesson and do it again, build confidence.
As we chatted as well, find a really easy tune outside of the course and start learning it, little by little, bar by bar. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry is about as easy as they get. Learn the riff, use it as a warm up. Your brain needs to cycle a bit on/off from a task, when you come back to the struggle you may find it not so hard.
It will come.
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@John_E thanks bro! Just finished my practice session and tonight went well I didn’t think about anything other than the task at hand. Played the groove on all three speeds and nailed it at 100%. Then I noodled around and went through all the notes I know so far and named them as I played them so yes it’s time and consistent effort.
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I took a class from Leo P over the summer (Leo is a ridiculous sax player).
He adamantly stated that you should spend time trying to figure out what kind of sounds you can make from your instrument, basically, noodling.
I think noodling brings us closer to our instrument.
In our desire to master things at top speed due to our limited time we have, I think we sometimes forget to noodle.
I also think noodling gives the brain another pathway to connect to the instrument as well, connecting dots we don’t even know need connecting.
Glad you nailed it tonight!
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Picking up my basses and just having fun with them, no goal in mind - this has been critical for me. YMMV.
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I agree! Just noodling around, in my case to a drum backing track, is precisely what allows me to set in Josh’s lessons. I’ll go through some of the patterns to a beat, just noodling and trying out. Not only is it helpful, it’s also super fun and relaxing.
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@John_E yes makes perfect sense and I agree. I was doing this simple little riff on the A string and just repeating it over and over making sure I was focusing on my fretting hand and making sure my finger position with relation to the frets were spot on and it was good. More noodling in my future for sure
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You got this. I started B2B as an almost-intermediate, I’d say. Blew through everything up to a certain point, then (and it might’ve been Billie Jean) had a sort of break in the action where I went off and practiced some songs or slap or other stuff, and returned to B2B on a regular basis like a week later. Had weeks where I’d get through several lessons, others where I’d recognize I needed to slow down, and some where I’d put it on the back-burner and practice something else.
Point is, I am THRILLED with the progress it helped me to make, even though I didn’t follow any particular schedule. To me, the course has become this little cheat-sheet I “keep in my back pocket”. I reference lessons all the time, even having officially completed it maybe a month or two back. Use it as you see fit!
Too, Josh is big on bite-sizing your tasks, so when you get stuck on a lesson, break it down into parts. I have a feeling that if he was sitting in on your practices, he’d have you do the exercise slowly until you could pinpoint exactly what isn’t clicking with it, and have you do that, over and over and over. Just like the noodling you described, in fact
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@chordsykat Thanks! I like how you describe having access to these lessons as a cheat sheet. Great way to put it I think impatience might be another issue and this is based on the fact I did online lessons in the past (various brands and models) and after 6 months I was worse than when I started, with B2B I am feeling much more confident and little things are starting to click and make sense and I have @JoshFossgreen to thank for that. As @John_E mentioned at 47 I am not old but my brain does not absorb like it did when I was 17 nor do my fingers want to naturally do fretting which they have never done, so it’s little by little and chunk by chunk. I think what I will do is slow down on parts that are giving me issues and then move on only when I feel I can move to the next lesson, and then possibly go through the course a second time to reinforce the sections, parts, techniques that can be improved or that I struggled with the first time around. I have a feeling as Josh mentioned a few times that those sections will be much easier the second time…
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@MonsieurFahrenheit, we’re the same age. Old dogs CAN learn new tricks, even in my case when people have told me for the last 47 years that an elephant stepped on my ear and I would never learn anything musical.
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