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Beginner bass lessons online ? ? Total noob

Danger McLovin

Danger McLovin

Oct 1, 2021
122
216
#1
Has anyone ever used either of the following online only services for total noob beginner bass lessons:

"Beginner to Badass" by Bassbuzz ? ?
or
SBL Scott's Bass Lessons ? ?

Does anyone have any feedback or reviews on either of these companies ? ?
 
#2
Both offer trials \ money back guarantees so I'd actually recommend that you try out both (as well as throw Talking Bass and Study Bass into the mix) but as a personal opinion.
  1. I would avoid SBL as a total beginner. There is lots of material there. Most of it is very high quality (they are nothing like Scots You Tube videos which tend to have a lot of preamble \ woffle). But ... it isn't very well organised. There is very little in the way of a structured path for a beginner and you could easily end up doing an SBL merry go round of courses. There is a new Beginner Pathway but there are only a few chapters at the moment. You can do a free trial to try it out for yourself but ideally use a throw away email address as you will receive a lot of marketing emails once you sign up!

  2. I started with Beginner to Bad Ass and I loved it. It focuses on playing with good technique and then starts to build up on theory. Have a look at Josh's You Tube channel and see if you like the way he delivers material.

  3. After Beginner to Bad Ass I have used Talking Bass a lot to build my skills. E.g. The Chord Tones and Scales Essentials courses. I have also used a couple of stand-alone SBL "Accelerators" - Technique and Fretboard. I've found all of these useful and all come with 14 day 0r 30 day money back guarantees. Mark at Talking Bass is more academic \ dry that Josh but if you prefer Mark's style then he also has beginner courses.

  4. If you can find a good tutor then also consider that approach. They can help build accountability and put together a path that is tailored to what you want as well as helping you avoid picking up too many bad habits. Find one that will record the lesson and allow you (or require you) to submit videos of yourself between lessons for review. Two that spring to mind are:
  • Phil Mann (With Bass In Mind)
  • Russ Rodgers
The main thing I would suggest is that you choose one and stick to it and ignore \ avoid the You Tube merry go round. Probably my biggest mistake when I first started was going around and around and around You Tube in the hope of finding something that would make learning bass easier when the reality was that I just need to focus my practice better as there was no silver bullet.

For a freebie starter; Study Bass is also very good.

Good Luck!
 
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#3
Ditto Talking Bass. I got a lot from the book Bass Guitar for Dummies. Most of the patterns I use today came from Dummies. I agree that Scott's material is for later.

Yes, to finding your way and stick with it staying off the merry-go-round. I was going to play in a country band and at church. Both of which pass out fake chord sheet music and everyone plays from that. So, in church I put all my fake chord sheet music into Nashville numbers (do a Google) and pounded roots to the beat. As that is what we do with Praise music, and NN lends itself to pounding roots to the beat. I CAN ONLY IMAGINE CHORDS (ver 6) by MercyMe @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com Now listen to the song and play along. MercyMe - I Can Only Imagine (Video) - Bing video Now armed with the chord progression play the video and see what you can do.

Hint, with slow ballads sometime just the root note and let it ring fits the song as it calls attention to the lyrics and lets the message be heard.


Now for Country I again used fake chord sheet music and followed the printed chord format using R-5 and R-5-8-5 for a bass line. Yes, changing the R-5 as the chords changed. Ray Price 1984 LIVE - Heartaches By The Number - Play It Again Nashville - Bing video Listen for the beat.
HEARTACHES BY THE NUMBER CHORDS by Guy Mitchell @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com

Notice how this song (kinda) follows the AABA format, again do a Google. More on that later, but for now the verses' chord progression are pretty much all the same. Just information to file away.... makes memorizing chord progressions a piece of cake, i.e. see if your progression is following the AABA format.

That will get you playing in any good ole boy hobby band. Is there more? Yes, but you will pick it up as you go along.

Have fun.

Edit] This will help with all that R-5-8-5 stuff.

Major scale box showing scale degree numbers and the root note on the 4th string.
G~~|---2---|-------|---3---|---4---| 1st string
D~~|---6---|-------|---7---|---8---|
A~~|---3---|---4---|-------|---5---|
E~~|-------|---R---|-------|---2---|4th string

Little more on fake chord. Every band director I ever had passed out fake chord. No one ever gave me anything in standard notation. My point, if you are going to play Country or Praise, in a hobby band, I bet everyone will be using fake chord - so you kinda need to know how to play from fake chord.
 
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#5
Gramski said:
I started with Beginner to Bad Ass and I loved it. It focuses on playing with good technique and then starts to build up on theory. Have a look at Josh's You Tube channel and see if you like the way he delivers material.
Click to expand...

I'm also a big fan of the BassBuzz Beginner to Bad Ass course. Maybe 90% of the course is you playing along with him, so sitting down to fire up a video feels productive. You're seldom sitting there watching. He tries to teach some music theory kind of stuff, but it's mostly about playing and learning a bunch of techniques. Not too far into the course, you'll find yourself able to play along with some simple songs with ease.

His style works for me, and it helps build confidence by playing along, even if his showing off video intros do work very well to make sure you know where you're at is still miles away from anything you'd call impressive.
 
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