I just recently stopped taking in-person lessons after 3.5 years

First, you don’t actually need lessons — plenty of terrific musicians are self-taught, maybe learn casually from a friend or relative and then get going on their own from there. Getting in a band and having open ears, seeing what others are doing, learning songs, etc. But beyond that, you’ve already had a few years of lessons; that provides you with a terrific foundation that can never be taken away. Now go out and actually play in your preferred style. You might have to actually unlearn things your Jazz teacher taught you in order to get the right rock/metal feel.

Meanwhile, as others have said, there’s always more to learn. If you get to a point where you want a teacher to guide you in a new direction or to a higher level in your current direction, find an appropriate teacher again at that point.

For me, I’ve taken lessons on and off in various instruments over the years. I’ve always found those to be valuable, but I never stuck with any for too long. A little lessons can go a long way.

Finally, as was mentioned, a great way to learn is to teach others. Along with or after playing in a band, if you find your own bass student(s), you will learn a lot by teaching them
 
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I'm just wondering if anyone had felt they "outgrown" their need for lessons like I did?

The most important part of lessons is learning how to continue teaching yourself.

Saxophonist Dave Liebman found he had so many requests for lessons that he developed a large book of exercises and then gave exactly one lesson. He would listen to the student play, point out what they need to work on and then give him the book.

Studying for decades only makes sense if you’re being taught at a very high level. It’s most common with classical musicians.
 
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I know there are loads of tabs of this song on Songster and Ultimate Guitar. But one thing I've learned is that tabs of songs are not correct most of the time and I asked for assistance on how to play this song as it also involves tapping. (Something I'm not familiar with) My teacher surprisingly didn't know how to tap on the bass so that was a bummer. Not only this, my teacher couldn't really identify the low notes that were playing on the bass which the bass is tuned down to drop G# (even with slowing down the song he had difficulties.) which goes to show that I was asking for assistance in waters he didn't know how to swim.

I know this is a few months old, so you might have found some resources already but:

Extreme Metal Bass by Alex Webster has a chapter on tapping. The book as a whole is all about working up the techniques (and speed) needed for, well, extreme metal. Also has sections on different metal styles to put the technique sections to work and some basics on creating songs in those styles.

Might be worth a look, even if you just want bits of it.
 
And I'm not sure how I feel about this, in one way I'm happy to stop because the lessons I've been taking the last 1-2 months have been kind of useless to me. There were also some lessons during the past year that I haven't been satisfied with as well. On the other hand, I'm saddened to stop taking lessons as I've taken weekly lessons for the past 3.5 years and it's been a part of my routine so I'm saddened that this door of my life will be closed from this point on.

For context, I've taken lessons since February 2021 right after I got my first bass guitar in January 2021. I've tried learning online on YouTube, TB, and Reddit and I felt like that wasn't helping so I opted to go to a bass teacher for some lessons. The teacher is considered the best in the city, other bass teachers in the area speak highly of him and he has 40 years of pro bass playing experience and knows his stuff. But he primarily focuses on jazz which I'm more a rock/metal guy. My teacher however took an approach that you can choose what to learn which was fine at the moment but after 3+ years, for the past 1-2 months I felt like there was nothing to bring up in my classes anymore. Not only this, I feel like the dynamic of my relationship with my teacher has been shifted from "Student-Mentor" to a "Friend-Friend" relationship which also meant a lot of time was being wasted by just talking with each other wasting my money. (And the classes weren't cheap, it was $75 for an hour lesson and he was considering raising the price to $100 soon.) Also, keep in mind that the majority of his students leave after 1-2 years of lessons and I'm currently his most tenured student.

Not only this I have achieved my goals, I originally wanted to play songs that I enjoy and now I could play 98% of songs I liked with practice and dedication on my part. But when I recently introduced my teacher to a very technical song I wanted to learn, my teacher was stumped and it was clear he couldn't teach me how to play it and I had to use online resources and my own time to learn the song myself. My other goal is that I wanted to be in a band and start playing live shows, and recently in the past month I got into a band and I'm playing my first gig tomorrow! So now I don't feel there is an incentive for me to take lessons as my teacher would not be able to teach me how to play their originals as my band uses tabs as sheet music and he cannot read tabs for some reason.

The reason why I'm writing this post is that I was always led to believe on Talkbass and on other forums that taking bass lessons is the way to go, which I agree with if you are starting off. But I feel now that I've outgrown these lessons and that there isn't really any use for me to take these lessons anymore. So I'm just wondering if anyone had felt they "outgrown" their need for lessons like I did? Just thinking about it, I don't know how some people can take lessons for 5, 10, or even 20+ years. I feel like I'm at fault for how I approached my lessons but at the same time I feel that I've evolved so much over the 3.5 years of playing and now I feel competent playing the bass.

Edit: Oh and keep in mind, quitting lessons hasn't changed my love for the bass. I'm still trying to keep my habit of practicing 1 hour a day!
just a couple of random thoughts here. First off, congrats on landing a job with a working band, and have fun at the gig. If you are like me, gigs like this and being in a band will accelerate your growth as a bassist at a than any lesson can provide.

As a working musician for over 50 years ( like that qualifies me as some sort of expert..lol), I really haven’t had a lot of formal instrumental lessons.I have however spent a lot of study time exposure to various types of music as well as a couple of years of music theory under my belt. The most important parts of that is ear training and understanding musical logic. Once I had that part down, applying it to a musical instrument is a matter of working out the physical parts of getting the music to come from said instrument. It also helps speed up the process of learning new material because you aren’t reinventing the wheel as much so to speak.

I am in no way suggestion that taking lesson’s is a waste of time and money. There are issues that deal with physical technique aspects that a good instructor can resolve in short order and well worth the money as well as the time spent on working through these kind of issues. Just ask a really good DB player about the time and lessons they spend on their technique.

On a side m=bar since you mentioned this. I was schooled on standard notation music from a very early age. Mainly because there was no such think as tabs. For me they makes little sense and much prefer standard notation. Probably your instructor was having the same issue.

The main shortcomings of tabs is very clear when playing in bands with orchestral instruments. You hand a tab to a horn section and or keyboardist and say play this, and you’re like going to get a really odd response.

And my usual disclaimer, Tabs are great for guitarists and and bassists for learning songs quickly. It’s an awesome shortcut, so I’m in no way saying they are useless.

One last suggestion, record your gig and review it. Trust me on this. A pocket digital recorder is almost as good as an instructior. It does not lie. It’s an instant report card. No recorder? Have your wife, girlfriend , partner, friend to record it on a cell phone. Unless you are very unusual, you can’t remember every note you play and how well you did or didn’t. Do worry about it not sounding like a polished recording, or expecting it to sound like it did where you were at the gig. This is an academic exercise for your growth as a bassist, not as a sound engineer.

I hope you found this useful and best wishes on the gig. Please post a new thread post gig. I’m sure we’d want to know about your experience.
 
I recently left my drum teacher after about 4 years of lessons. He is a high level teacher giving lessons to many other teachers, an absolute monster in many genres of music. He has much more he could teach me, but I’m at a point I need to work out some things on my own. I plan to return later.

It is a strange feeling to not be taking lessons after all this time. I get it.

I will offer this: I taught a high level corporate class to a group of technicians with decades of experience each. I started the class soliciting a list of questions. To each question I answered, I don’t know.

I could see the look on their faces, why am I wasting time with this idiot. I continued playing the part of ignorance but proceeded to show them, not the answers but how to discover what they needed to answer the questions themselves. Give a man a fish versus teach a man to fish sort of thing. I got positive responses for many months from those in attendance.

Nothing wrong with moving on and starting a new chapter, but consider that maybe you missed the point of your final lesson. I’ve taught many people to play guitar over the years. My goal has always been to create players that could learn on their own. Whether intentional or not, it sounds like this is what your instructor has done for you.

Best of luck along your journey.
 
I’d like to offer an idea for a limited term of lessons focused on learning some challenging music that will push me significantly beyond current skill level. Does anyone take lessons to coach the performance of classical music on electric bass, like music written for solo ‘cello or something. Playing Bach’s Cello Sonatas on bass is pretty challenging, for instance.
 
I was always led to believe on Talkbass and on other forums that taking bass lessons is the way to go, which I agree with if you are starting off. But I feel now that I've outgrown these lessons and that there isn't really any use for me to take these lessons anymore. So I'm just wondering if anyone had felt they "outgrown" their need for lessons like I did? Just thinking about it, I don't know how some people can take lessons for 5, 10, or even 20+ years.

Part of me wondered if the thread title "I just recently stopped taking in-person lessons after 3.5 years" might have been a typo, and the decimal point was supposed to be one digit to the right :)

But -- after three pages I'm sure someone has suggested this already -- perhaps it's not that you've "outgrown lessons" but rather that you've outgrown that particular teacher's lessons?