My Instructor Plays...

duo8675309 · #1 11-07-2005, 10:57 PM

My instructor mainly plays guitar. He can play bass, but his main instrument is guitar, so I'm learning to be a bassist from a guitarist. I think this helps me and hinders me at the same time. Some of the things he teaches me to do don't really fit in well with my style of playing sometimes, but I am learning a lot of things that I don't think I would have learned otherwise. I don't think many other teachers would have started teaching their student how to play chords on the bass this early, or how to right-hand tap like Van Halen. I think I'm developing my own type of style just from this. But maybe I'm just retarded and don't realize that a lot of other people have this same advantage and I'm just over-reacting. What do you guys think?

Suckbird · #2 11-07-2005, 11:20 PM

I took lessons in bass guitar from a guitarist, too bad i became too good for him... he didn't even want to get paid for the last year of lessons lol...

serious, he teached me how to slap. I was slapping with my hand resting on the string and the thumb straight down, it looked so dumb and it took me alot of time to relearn the proper way of slapping...

JimmyM · #3 11-08-2005, 12:35 AM

Learning from a guitarist is OK for a little while, and you're right that he could give you a whole new perspective on playing that you wouldn't get from a bassist. But at the same time, it's not what he does so you would want to get the meat of what you need to learn from a bassist. It's sort of like I might hire a lawn maintenance guy to fix a busted sprinkler head but I wouldn't hire him to install a whole sprinkler system. Or like you can go to a general practice doctor for a first diagnosis, but then you'd need a specialist to do the surgery, except nobody dies if you take lessons from a guitarist.

jnprather · #4 11-08-2005, 02:52 AM

I'd be careful, only because i've known several people who took bass lessons from a guitar teacher, and honestly ended up with a years worth of wasted lessons and just terrible technique. Of course that's not always the case, but be careful.

Skeletomania · #5 11-08-2005, 06:20 AM

I'm taking lessons from an instructor who play bass and guitar too. He told me he know many guitarist that can play chords but can't break it up into notes. While you're learning chords I hope you can break it up to understand what it does. Also, he asked me if I wanted to learn slap and pop. I choose to stick with learning blues so I can establish my rhythm and feelings which I soley lack than learning fancy stuff. In the end, my instructor said the same stuff like anyone in this forum would say. Other musicians will pick you as their bassist for being able to hold the rhythm than being able to pull some fancy stuff. Take what I just said with a grain of salt since I'm not there to see first hand what your instructor is teaching you compared to mine. Maybe he's teaching something really useful. I don't know.

duo8675309 · #6 11-08-2005, 02:52 PM

He already told me that once I got well established with the bass that he would move me on to another guy whose main instrument is bass. But until then I'm stuck w/ good ol' Charlie.

**Mark Wilson** · #7 11-09-2005, 02:15 PM

My Music teacher started his guitars lessons from a Sax player. Who knows..But he says he learned alot about music as a whole.

ikickuintheballs · #8 11-09-2005, 02:41 PM

My teacher played guitar in a jazz band, so he mainly taught me how to walk, and lots of theory. He only could teach me basic techniques since he wasn't only really skilled in guitar and keyboard. The thoery has helped a bit, but I have no idea how to properly slap or tap. So he really only taught me music theory to build everything on, not how to play the bass (well, not the techniques).