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I Need to Talk to My Teacher

Dr. Cheese

Dr. Cheese

Supporting Member
Mar 3, 2004
57,357
120,790
Metro St. Louis
#1
I have known my teacher for a long time, and believe he respects my ability as a bassist within the context of what I play. To be blunt, I think I need more work on fundamentals and less on learning compositions and more intricate reading. I know he has gotten a bit frustrated with my reading, and showed me how easily I could play things by ear, so I should be able to read them. My point is that I am a player who played totally by ear for years. For years, I barely had knowledge of the fingerboard. I just recognized the shapes of intervals scales and triads. The bottom line is that I need to work on basics of quickly recognizing notes in all positions, and getting better at playing in all keys. Maybe I am selling myself short, but I don't mind slogging through simple excercises and memorization. I need to do it for the next few months. After that, I think my sight really be closer to getting through more ambitious reading.
 
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#3
I think I get where you're coming from. You're blessed with a very good ear, which is a huge blessing but also a curse in the sense that it means you could always make meaningful music without learning a whole lot of theory about what you were doing. And now you want to go back in and fill some of those gaps in your basic knowledge of theory. I'm in the same place, but working with books instead of a teacher. Maybe it's a good idea to do something similar, get some basic books that cover the fundamentals you feel you are lacking and just work through that on your own?
 
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#4
Killed_by_Death said:
The first thing that comes to my minds is,
if you know this, why do you need an instructor?
Click to expand...

In my experience, a teacher sees things I don't shortening the learning time. Some people are great at teaching themselves. I feel a teacher keeps me on the straight and narrow. This sort of contradicts my first post, but a teacher will challenge me in way I don't always challenge myself. To contradict myself some more, after starting this thread, I went back and worked out a reading exercise my teacher assigned that goes into the upper register on the A string that intimidated me at first.
 
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#5
LBS-bass said:
I think I get where you're coming from. You're blessed with a very good ear, which is a huge blessing but also a curse in the sense that it means you could always make meaningful music without learning a whole lot of theory about what you were doing. And now you want to go back in and fill some of those gaps in your basic knowledge of theory. I'm in the same place, but working with books instead of a teacher. Maybe it's a good idea to do something similar, get some basic books that cover the fundamentals you feel you are lacking and just work through that on your own?
Click to expand...

I am kind of doing that now even though I have a teacher. I have been going back and worked on simpler exercises to help me read my actual homework.
 
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#6
Dr. Cheese said:
I am kind of doing that now even though I have a teacher. I have been going back and worked on simpler exercises to help me read my actual homework.
Click to expand...
That's what I have to do, too. I have books with written exercises that are beyond my real-time sight reading skill (which is pretty poor) so I have to go back to grab some very basic stuff in order to understand these other exercises. It's frustrating.
 
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#7
LBS-bass said:
That's what I have to do, too. I have books with written exercises that are beyond my real-time sight reading skill (which is pretty poor) so I have to go back to grab some very basic stuff in order to understand these other exercises. It's frustrating.
Click to expand...

It's frustrating but necessary if we are going to truly be able to sight read. I don't to keep half reading, half memorizing charts.
 
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#9
Killed_by_Death said:
The first thing that comes to my minds is,
if you know this, why do you need an instructor?
Click to expand...

The first thing that comes to my mind is, if you only know this because someone has been drilling it in your head, and even then You still haven't started doing it then, yes, you need an instructor. You're actually proving exactly why people need an instructor.
 
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#10
Whousedtoplay said:
N.B. I've started playing bass many decades ago after a 4-year music school; therefore, I cannot be correct, but...

N.B.2. It's only my opinion!

It looks like your teacher does not understand your bass player's status, your situation, your goals, etc...
It looks like your teacher tries to simply "overwhelm" you with "learning compositions", "intricate reading", while you need a SOLID foundation FIRST!

Some signs of a "negligent"/"ignorant" bass teacher.
When not a young bass player wants to acquire the BASICS(!) but the "teacher" gives the beginner bass player homework to improvise over "Giant Steps", or Jaco's version of Donna Lee.

I'll stop here because most of our "pro" TB members MUST work as teachers.
Click to expand...

I think he cares, but I think sometimes he is overwhelmed by survival as a musician.
 
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#18
As a music educator of 11 years and a bass player who also played/plays much better by ear than reading, immersion is the best thing. Read music as much as you can. Grab transcriptions anywhere you can whether published or just posted online. The more you read, the better you get. And guess what, you'll probably still use your prior knowledge and start seeing arpeggios or scales and end up playing from muscle memory rather than reading note for note, and that's ok. You're improving your overall reading.

Exercises can be good, but a lot of them are designed to improve technique rather than reading skills. Once you hear the pattern of a scale in thirds, you're not really looking at the notes themselves you're just using your ear.

Definitely don't stop going to your teacher in the mean time, just supplement. This is one of those things where your time spent on it is the most valuable thing you can do, and you don't necessarily need a teacher to walk you through this it sounds like, but your teacher is there for other things.

Don't overthink it, just start reading!
 
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#19
Sight reading just takes time. Sounds like you're willing to put in the work. You really don't need a teacher for that once you have the basic concepts of understanding music. I can read music (all clefs, all variations of instruments -Bb, C, Eb, F), but I'm relatively new to bass guitar and it is a very slow process to associate a written note with fingering.

Sounds like you sometimes just let your ear take over when you are practicing reading, which will never get you anywhere. Try getting charts of songs you don't know. Don't "cheat" and go and listen to them until you can play through the song by reading the chart. And I wouldn't even learn to read on bass lines - get some melody lines in bass clef (like a bass clef real book).
1. It's so much more interesting to read melodies than most bass lines
2. Your much less likely to just fall into an "ear" routine
3. Playing melodies gets you up the neck quite a bit which really forces you to learn the fingerboard

After you can read reasonably fluently, then you can start reading complex bass lines.

I also find that writing music will help you to read it. Transcribe few of your favorite melodies or bass lines and write them down in musical notation.

I'm assuming you are an grown person and that you are taking private lessons - yes talk with your teacher and express what you want to work on. I'm not saying his curriculum is wrong, but if he understands what your goals are, he can help guide you. Unless he has a compelling reason to not help you on YOUR goal, you might want to find a different teacher.
 
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#20
This is exactly the situation I was in that caused me to give up taking lessons. My ear had gotten me by long past the point where teachers feel that I should already know more of the basics (fretboard knowledge, theory, etc) than I do.

I'll be following to see what people suggest.
 

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