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How do you prefer to consume instructional material?

What do you prefer when learning music/bass without an instructor?

  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .
fretlessman71

fretlessman71

Still beats havin' a job
Supporting Member
Aug 8, 2005
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FoCo, NoCo
www.michaelolsononline.com
#1
I have created a boatload of PDFs for students over the last 3 years. And over the last 3 years, I have gotten exactly ONE new student. So I considered trying to turn them into a book, but in the year 2023, maybe that isn't how people want to learn outside of an actual bass teacher. (Inside an actual teacher, it's too dark to see the music - ba dap BING!)

Please take a moment to check which options above would suit you, and feel free to say why below. I'd rather not spend the time and effort creating a book that no one is interested in reading. Thanks.
 
#3
Firstly, I don’t know what your education or experience level is so apologies if you’ve already studied this stuff.

*edit* Depends what it is and WHO it is for. I have struggled with the modes and the circle of fifths for years. It all seems too abstract. Reading books and watching videos (SBL, How to Play bass.com and Talking Bass) it just doesn’t go in. I need to be able to ask questions and see various practical demonstrations before it sinks in.

There are various theoretical approaches to teaching and learning styles and the best you can do is to try to appeal to as many as you can. That means using text as well as colours, images, charts, videos, headline info in bulletpoints as well as explanations on how it fits into the “whole” musical landscape and of course analysis activities and practice from the learner. Learning in the flow of work is a big thing in pedagogy at the moment but it just means on the job learning. We all know how much benefit playing with others does for improvement. So some sort of interaction or task is better than simple explanation.

There is a good article on brain friendly learning here:
How to make brain friendly learning that sticks (Expert interview)

P.S. I have a phone full of bass lesson pdfs that I downloaded but never look at as the format doesn’t work for me. Too much text = my brain switches off. And for the record I’m 56 and have 2 postgrad qualifications. You’d think I was cool with text but man, I had to work twice as hard to digest all the info. My brain just works better with sound and images.
 
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#4
Yonni said:
Firstly, I don’t know what your education or experience level is so apologies if you’ve already studied this stuff.

*edit* Depends what it is and WHO it is for. I have struggled with the modes and the circle of fifths for years. It all seems too abstract. Reading books and watching videos (SBL, How to Play bass.com and Talking Bass) it just doesn’t go in. I need to be able to ask questions and see various practical demonstrations before it sinks in.

There are various theoretical approaches to teaching and learning styles and the best you can do is to try to appeal to as many as you can. That means using text as well as colours, images, charts, videos, headline info in bulletpoints as well as explanations on how it fits into the “whole” musical landscape and of course analysis activities and practice from the learner. Learning in the flow of work is a big thing in pedagogy at the moment but it just means on the job learning. We all know how much benefit playing with others does for improvement. So some sort of interaction or task is better than simple explanation.

There is a good article on brain friendly learning here:
How to make brain friendly learning that sticks (Expert interview)

P.S. I have a phone full of bass lesson pdfs that I downloaded but never look at as the format doesn’t work for me. Too much text = my brain switches off. And for the record I’m 56 and have 2 postgrad qualifications. You’d think I was cool with text but man, I had to work twice as hard to digest all the info. My brain just works better with sound and images.
Click to expand...
If you ever wanted to meet online with a bass in your hands, I'd be happy to do my best to explain modes and Circle of Fifths and all that stuff. I'd consider it research for the way I want to mass-present my teaching material.
 
#5
fretlessman71 said:
If you ever wanted to meet online with a bass in your hands, I'd be happy to do my best to explain modes and Circle of Fifths and all that stuff. I'd consider it research for the way I want to mass-present my teaching material.
Click to expand...
I might take you up on that offer. I’m in the UK so we’d have to work out time difference.

I understand the theory when I’m being taught it, its just retaining the knowledge and knowing it well enough to apply it. I find it hard to memorise patterns without the context of a song. The names mean nothing to me so to learn Locrian for example, I can memorise the pattern but can’t remember whether its Locrian or Dorian or Phrygian, etc.
 
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#7
I play three different instruments at three different levels. On piano I'm a beginner (started around November). On guitar, I'd call myself intermediate. Bass I've been playing for 30+ years. I find books to be extremely useful at the beginner and intermediate levels. Especially the beginner level. With the piano, I don't think I'd have the first clue what to work on without a book.

I voted for both "books" and "transcribing". I think there's a correlation between the level I'm at and what I'm focused on: more book-heavy at the beginning, more transcription-heavy as I get more experienced.
 
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#8
Yonni said:
I understand the theory when I’m being taught it, its just retaining the knowledge and knowing it well enough to apply it. I find it hard to memorise patterns without the context of a song. The names mean nothing to me so to learn Locrian for example, I can memorise the pattern but can’t remember whether its Locrian or Dorian or Phrygian, etc.
Click to expand...

Most music theory isn’t that hard to understand, but it takes a lot of work to memorize and internalize the things that the theory is describing.

Memorizing a pattern, say of the Dorian, is not the same as learning the Dorian. You have to internalize the sounds and intervals of the Dorian so you can play it outside of the pattern. So that you can play it where ever you are on the fretboard based on the Dorian sound you are hearing in your head.
 
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#10
I voted for books and videos. Most of my learning has come from books. I wish they were accompanied by video (to show what needs to be shown and play what needs to be heard). The general problem I have with Youtube is that most videos waste so much time bs-ing, promoting, etc. and I am impatient with that noise. But there is no reason they should optimize their products for people looking for “something for nothing”. When people charge more for the combined product, particularly when bundled as a subscription, I worry about privacy, scams or difficult customer service and I hesitate to pull the trigger. Part of the problem is that I would pay to have improved skills, but I never know in advance if a particular course can really improve my skills … thus there is an asymmetrical risk of engaging in the transaction; it is guaranteed that I will pay.

Good luck with your endeavors.
 
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#11
Yonni said:
I might take you up on that offer. I’m in the UK so we’d have to work out time difference.

I understand the theory when I’m being taught it, its just retaining the knowledge and knowing it well enough to apply it. I find it hard to memorise patterns without the context of a song. The names mean nothing to me so to learn Locrian for example, I can memorise the pattern but can’t remember whether its Locrian or Dorian or Phrygian, etc.
Click to expand...
Names are like everything else... you use them often enough and they stick. But unlike names of people or things, the names for the modes themselves mean bupkus. You could functionally get away with calling them the 1 mode, the 2 mode, etc.

I'm in the Mountain Daylight Time right now. It's 8:14 as I type this.
 
#15
This may require a good bit of time at the drawing board. I put together a book as part of my honours degree and there were so many elements I had to research and dig into that have practically nothing to do with the content of a book.

Personally speaking if I had 3 years worth of pdfs and 1 new student to test them out on I wouldn't even consider trying to put a book out. This stuff requires a lot of trail and feedback and 1 new student isn't the best barometer for that. Fundamentally speaking if people aren't responding to your approach in person where you have far more luxuries in your approaches why would they want to pay for a book where you are severely limited in that? That's not to question your abilities as an educator but it's the fundamental part of it all when putting this stuff together.

There are design, formatting and layout aspects with a book that have nothing to do with content but then shape the delivery of that content. In the hundreds of instructional books I had to properly analyse and study I found some of the best ones for content looked utterly atrocious that sales were significantly lower than books where the content was atrociously written but looked great. Side note: this issue exists in a lot of video lessons as well where high levels of production suggest the content is a high standard but the content is probably more damaging to ones knowledge base than beneficial.

It's an absolute ballet and art form to marry the two worlds up.

You've then got to think about the content itself. As you know when teaching you can't have 1 explanation for 1 thing, you need to have 100 explanations for 1 thing and determine quickly which one the student will respond to. Often the way I like the least is the one the student responds to the most, but I have to go with that because ultimately my goal is to help the student turn the understanding of that information into knowledge. As @Yonni rightfully pointed out, you have to try to appeal to the masses but appealing to the masses creates 1 major crux. The fastest learner and the slowest learner are now on the same footing and both have to be feel validated in a one approach fits all, which again is the challenge. Side note: this is the issue with group lessons in that you have to make everyones experience feel valid (it is) but you have different paces going on at the same time. Fortunately there is a pretty good way to mitigate that and use the group experience as an advantage.

The pace of learning and how you present the information is a huge factor as well. Again to draw on Yonni's point where having charts, tables, bullet points etc all includes runs the risk of overwhelming the reader/learning because they are saying a lot of information at once.

If you want to chat about it all then message me, don't want to derail you thread any more than I already have! For context the book I eventually put together has never seen the light of day because in the end I didn't feel like it was where I wanted it to be. Maybe one day I'll revise it all and put my approaches down on paper again... maybe one day.... maybe... one day...

Also Yonni, I guarantee your issue isn't anywhere near as problematic as you might think! The majority of that stuff doesn't even require a bass in your hands at all!
 
#16
I selected three of the options offered. I am going to put them in my preferred order

1) Transcription (learning by ear; copying the music onto paper/software)

I will always prefer sitting down and learning the song myself. There's a couple of advantages to this. As I keep warning a friend of mine: "Those people on UG who are making tabs can be just as wrong as you are. They're not authorities." I have found that even the "Official" tabs created by the UG team can sometimes be wrong.

2) Other

I have friends/acquaintances to whom I can turn, if I'm "stuck" on a song/riff. I have no issue doing that. I'm old enough to remember how we learned to play in the first place; trading riffs in someone's garage or basement.

3) Youtube videos

I will resort to Youtube videos (usually only if I've really hit a wall; just so I can get an idea of where to start my learning.

One other addition: I have subscribed to specific online teachers before and it has never ended well; from being flat-out lied to (lifetime access turns out to be don't wind up in a hospital for three months or they'll cancel you) the instructor "speaking over my head" and not being able to even get started on what they're trying to teach.

Trust me: NONE of them have ever given me my money back and they are in no hurry to return yours, if you're not satisfied.
 

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