am i lerning right?

[sorefingers]

ok, ok. i know you guys probably get this all the time, but am i teaching myself right. ok ive learned all major scales (forward and backwards) i know most major chords, and i can groove or jam with my mom on banjo, lol. but i started to practice slap and listnening to music and trying to play with it and the right note, but i cant really do that it takes me forever to get the right note, but i still tottally enjoy it. so i was wandering if this is how all yall started out. and please dot tell me to "research" or whatever cause i have and havent really gotten any good output.

[stflbn]

As a bassist, I feel your ears are as important or more important then advanced reading or scales abilities.

Get with other musicians and start jamming to whatever type of music interests you, it will help your ears a lot.

Another thing that may help is to not rely on Tabs for everything. Possibly get the key off a tab if you need it, but learn some things by ear from there. Start basic... don't let yourself get frustrated.

Learning is learning regardless of the difficulty.




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[sorefingers]

yes i tottally agree with you on tabs. i hate them and so does my family, my grandfather and my aunt and uncle and my mom were in a bluegrass band and they all learned to play by ear. so usually i play bluegrass and i pretty much tried to live on the tradition.

[mambo4]

I'll just paraphrase what others will no doubt say:

-get a teacher
-join a band

a teacher will help you "learn right" especially by giving you educated suggestions about what to focus on

a band will force you to step up and do what bass players are meant to do.

playing along with stuff as you mentioned is good practice for your ears. Learning lots of songs and analyzing them harmonically will also improve your ear. You may want to study some chord theory to help you analyze them (see link in my sig).