First lessons

[ShawnG]

Well I"m resurrecting this post after two months of...."lessons". I'm not sure I'll continue. I was hoping for a more structured plan with ideas and things to practice in between lessons, but every time I show up, the instructor asks, "So, what do you want to do today?" [You tell me!] I guess they mostly just teach kids that have never played. I somewhat already know how to play, and it seems like they don't know what to do with me.

I have had a few lessons I thought were good. He taught me a scale(?) in the key of G...but I'm still confused about all that stuff. Reading chord charts was interesting as well. But other times we just talk or he shows me YT videos of bass players and says, "try that". Marcus Miller....really?

I think i've come to realize that what I'm trying to learn, I'd have to enroll in a music academy or institute (music theory....how and WHY bass lines are written like they are, song-writing) more scales(?). I don't know what I don't know and i still don't after 2 months of lessons. I want to learn how to make music with other musicians and how to work in a band. I'm not interested at this point in learning how to tap/slap like Victor Wooten etc.

Are there any good online programs I should look into? Bummed....

I am very happy with Mark Smith over at TalkingBass. He has a degree in music, strongly suggests learning to sight-read, is linear in his teaching method and is based on theory. The “holy trinity” among his students are the Chord Tones, Scale Essentials and Sight Reading courses. I’m enrolled in all three (plan on Walking Bass when I complete Chord Tones & Scales) and am happy with how the courses build on each other. he has several hours of free lessons so you can take a look and see if the site is a good fit before ever paying for anything. Worth a look, IMO.

 

[marsquake]

Probably a weird question, but did all the bassist in all thse great rock bands throughout history etc., study chord theory, scales, music theory etc., between hits of heroin and glugs of whiskey?

I think i asked my instructor something to this effect, and he said hell no....they just got lucky with writing songs or riffs.

I've been looking harder at some of the music/bass lines I like playing from my favorite bands to try and figure out the why....but I'm not sure why I'm doing that now. For example, i read Mike Starr didn't know what to play on "Down in a Hole" so some guy named Evan Sheeley wrote it for him or something like that. Is that somewhat a normal occurrence in the industry. I take it Evan is a session musician?

 

[ahbass2500]

Probably a weird question, but did all the bassist in all thse great rock bands throughout history etc., study chord theory, scales, music theory etc., between hits of heroin and glugs of whiskey?

I think i asked my instructor something to this effect, and he said hell no....they just got lucky with writing songs or riffs.

I've been looking harder at some of the music/bass lines I like playing from my favorite bands to try and figure out the why....but I'm not sure why I'm doing that now. For example, i read Mike Starr didn't know what to play on "Down in a Hole" so some guy named Evan Sheeley wrote it for him or something like that. Is that somewhat a normal occurrence in the industry. I take it Evan is a session musician?

Are you referring to "big act players" or are you referring to the bulk of musicians who are musicians for a living? Big acts... yes some (but not certainly not all) of them are going to be playing very basic stuff and have little need for theory (good chunk of rock and roll is straight eighths after all). They might not need theory. The bulk of musicians who do it for a living at some capacity at least know how to read; many of them know theory.

The following real event is a brief description of the benefits of theory... the first theory course I took there was a kid who was really into 80's hair bands. He had a "band". He told the instructor that theory was pointless, because they could write songs by saying "oh play the third fret on the second string for this one." He then proceeded to outline a chord progression that he and his buddies had spent a week working out. It was basically a 12 bar blues progression with variation on repeats (so it was not quite 12 bars, but the chord order was the same). Anyone with theory background pulls that out in seconds instead of a week.

Clearly it can be done without knowledge of theory... but if you are trying to write anything it is harder to do without it than with it.

 

[marsquake]

I am very happy with Mark Smith over at TalkingBass......

Thanks for letting me know about Mark and Talking Bass. He and the lessons are great! So much so that I cancelled my Yousician subscription before they charged me. I tried it a time or two and it wasn't for me. Talking Bass is awesome....a bit overwhelming right now, but I can see it's value. There are a ton of videos to sift through for me. Again, thanks for the tip!