How long to become good?

[Silas Martinez]

My instructor and I were talking recently. This guy has been playing jazz professionally for 45 years (DB and EB), teaches at CSUS, and is an all around amazing player.

He told me the other day, 'I just started being good at it last week. I had a really good gig, so I feel good.'

[CraigG]

"Good" is a relative classification so it's nearly impossible to answer your question. Relative to how much natural talent you have, how good your "ear" is, how easily you can pick something up, how quickly your "muscle memory" develops, what those you're playing with/for think of your playing, what type of music you want to play, whether you'll need to be able to read music to play the type of music you wish to play.

Probably the best advice I can give is to NOT set a benchmark by which you judge yourself. Simply develop a real love of the bass guitar - learn and understand its "voice" and make it yours. You will find that developing a love of the instrument takes you far. Then you'll be on your way to being a good player!

Craig

[u2Fletch]

I've been playing bass for about two years now, but have played, and continue to play clarinet in bands/ orchestra for many years. So I can sight read music very well, but had to learn bass clef. First goal when I started was to get "good" enough to play along with other players. Had lots of music software, and stuff to practice with daily. Spent many hours a day practicing.

Took a few months before I played live with a church band. That worked okay and I did not embarass myself. Long way to go though beyond playing root chords off lead sheets. I have Smartmusic software that has lots of classic Jazz standard with music on-screen. I was determined to play as much as I could up to tempo. SIght reading walking bass lines kicked my butt at speeds more than 70bpm. Took several Musicdojo courses under Norm Stockton, and kept playing whatever I could get my hands on.

About a year into playing got to play a 'major' gig for me with a worship team at a summer camp for a week. Their bass player could not make it and I was there and had my bass. We jumped in, they loved my playing and we had a blast. First time playing with an excellent drummer, which was very cool locking in with him. They were rather surprised when they found out at the end of the week that I had played less than a year.

More practicing with drum machines, exercises, and going back to re-visit previously unplayable pieces. Now I find that previous "hard" pieces are now much easier and can do walking bass lines up to 150bpm or so.

Next big step was when I got asked to sub in for a local theater company musical production of Ain't Misbehavin'. I had no idea if I was ready or not until I saw "the Book" and we did the first rehearsal. A couple parts needed some woodshedding, but it went very well. After that I got called to do "Thoroughly Modern Millie" in another local show. Turns out not many guys sight read very well. They found out I can, so am suddenly in demand. That show was a blast, 20's Jazz and the bass played in everything, 134 pages of music. I used my Variax 705 to simulate the acoustic upright bass the music called for.

The key theme here is "good enough" for whatever goal you have set for yourself. I love the bass and the role it plays. Some songs you just play whole notes, and that sound rocks. Other times you can just feel that you need to do a fill or something and suddenly all your scale/mode/arpeggio training kicks in and something very cool comes out without much conscious thought at all.

So have fun above all!

Or you can get a wild hair and decide to build a bass, like I did.
First Build(s) Two basses at once!

[armandine2]

The real question is; how long does it take to fail? Don't spend too long at it. William Pleeth, cello teacher (famously of Jacqueline Du Pre) advised, for success, in having 'the music' always in mind. I've failed at a stack of things, the great thing about music as Bach said (I read somewhere) you just have to play the right note (hit the right key) at the right time.

[Alaska Bass]

Originally Posted by Joe Lindley

I like the idea of the 2 year timeline, and maybe this has been addressed a lot of times on TalkBass (and if it has you could just point me to the thread), but can somebody give me a list of things that a rookie like me should accomplish within that time frame? A 2-yr instructional guide. Like a bulleted list of stuff to know or do by the end of 3 months, a half-year, 1 year, and so on. Maybe you can just remember what your progression was over that time, especially if it worked well for you, or maybe with hindsight you realize a way that would have improved your progression (like I should have learned the Mixolydian mode a lot earlier than I did, etc.).

I would say that in 3 months you should know the note names of any finger position given, you should be able to play basic lines, sticking to the root note of the chords with minor mistakes allowed. Also, you should be starting to use more than one finger on each hand as you play. At 6 months, you should have a knowledge of more than one playing style and the bass components required to make that style sound somewhat accurate and should be using multiple fingers on both hands, emphasizing proper positioning during playing. You should be developing endurance in your hand muscles, and in your shoulders (depending on the weight of your bass . At a year, I would expect to begin development of your ear training, hearing where a song is going to go. This can start earlier with some people, but learning the fundamentals of the instrument often times is a higher priority. Additionally, you should be developing your sight reading abilities and start to work on alternate notes (thirds and fifths) and minor improvisation. At a year and a half, you should be expanding your repetoir to include at least three different music styles, know your scales, be able to perform moderately difficult passages and improvise solo bass parts.

This is a standard advancement for someone who does not have more than three hours a day to give to practice. Also, some people advance quicker than others; it doesn't mean they are better than the others, it just means they pick music concepts up more intuitively than others. Even musically challenged individuals can have some success in music if they apply themselves to their studies and practices of their instrument.

I hope this helps, I know some will disagree with various points but in general I believe this will give you a good target to aim for and if followed will make you a competent (if not outstanding in your region) bass player.

[AveryHorton]

What is "good"?

I can remember wanting to be able to play with my eyes closed. At the time, to me, that was good. I can do that now. Every now and then, while on stage, I realize I am doing that. Makes me happy.

There are plenty of players who are "better" than me. They know more songs. They can play flasher solos. They have better ears. They can read music. Etc... But I play "from the heart" and that's what matters to me. It's the energy that I put out that makes the difference. I also know WHAT NOT to play and WHEN NOT to play. In other words, I know HOW to play with others.

Sometimes at jam sessions, other players will ask me what kind of pickups I am using. I laugh and say "P.O.S." pickups. They ask where they can get them and I laugh and say "this bass is a $100 piece of s*** that I bought used off some guy."

Other times someone will compliment me on my playing after all I did was play the root note the whole time. No fills, no flash, just the same line verse after verse after verse.

If you want to hear an example of GREAT musicians barely playing at all and sounding great, then listen to the first BLUES BROTHERS recording ( album for you old guys like me...LOL). I mean those guys hardly played anything close to flashy and they are all respected players. But the band was so "tight", you can't help but say it's great music.

Good? No, I am not good. But if I am on stage with you, I won't embarrass you. I just play, it's fun. Hopefully, you'll have fun playing, too. If you don't, what's the point?