I'm in a rut....

[Herbal]

What is it that is your playing weak spot?
Practice that.

 

[Stumbo]

If you came to TB after 6 years with your story, yes, you would be in a rut. After 6months, it may feel like it but you have to slogging on, hour by hour, day by day.

It's only 10,000 hours between you and pro bass players. 20 hours a week for 10 years should do it!

About how many total hours have you put in? 3 hours a week for 6 months? 80 hours or so?

At 150 hours a year instead if 1000, it will seem to take forever to make any progress.

Gotta put in the time to get on the back line!

 

[Cropduster]

I respect your opinion, but I disagree. All tab does is show you where to put your fingers. Quite apart from the fact that a lot of the time it is wrong, it does not give you tempo or groove. When playing along to songs and working out the bass lines yourself, your ear (when it's developed) will tell you where to put (or not to put...if it sounds wrong) your fingers. It is also hard to get the "feel/groove" of a song when you are doing the audio equivalent of painting by numbers. In some cases perhaps tab can help if a piece of music is complex or when the bass is not easily heard on a recording. Apart from that, IMO it's use is best kept to an absolute minimum. Yes, learning to play by ear involves a lot of work...to begin with, but once your ear develops, you will be able to play a song with minimum effort simply by listening. With tabs, you will be for ever in a rut.

YMMV.

This!!!
firstly though, thanks to everyone for responding, all input is very much appreciated, even MadBass who says it could be _ME_ at fault?? never! i don't have BO and i can't play slap at all!!!

My trouble with tab is exactly as described, i find it useful if i know a song and it helps me learn the notes to play on the fretboard but if i don't know the song i have no way of knowing the tempo at all.

 

[Cropduster]

Makes good since. I'll give you some stuff to chew on.
Chords In The Key Of C is a site that will give you the notes of a specific scale and the chords made from that scale.

Lets take the C major scale first. It has no sharps or flats so it's just these notes; C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and then C for the beginning of the next octave.
Now the G major scale has one sharp, the F#. So the G major scale is G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. The next one in line is the D major scale, it has two sharps. So write out the D scale as D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D and then go back and put in the sharps. How? Use this memory peg.

See God Destroy All Earth By F#irey C#haos. The C scale has no sharps or flats, the G scale has one, the D scale has two, the A scale has three, etc.

Which ones? Use this memory peg. Fat Cats Go Down Alleys Eating Birds. The first sharp will be the F, the second will be the C and the third will be the G, etc. So the A major scale will have a F#, C# & G#. Make your own chart and all this will belong to you.

OK Chords - Chords are made by stacking the chord's scale in 3rds. Easy way of putting that is the C major chord is made up of C, skip a note E, skip a note G and if you wanted a Cmaj7 chord you would add the B. Yep count it out. Yes but there are all those major and minor chords how do I know which is going to be major and which is going to be minor?

Major chords follow this order Major, minor, minor Major, Major, minor, minor diminished.
Again the chords in our key of C would be. C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim. It is understood that diminished chords are first minor and then diminished.

So take the key of A and remember here we have some sharps..... A, Bm, C#m, D, E, F#m, G#dim or could be written as G#m7b5.

Using the link I gave you write out the notes of the B major scale and the chords in the Key of B major. Yes check your work with the link I gave you.

If you can do that you no longer need to look at a scale or chord chart for any major note or chord.

Yes when you can do that then take on the minor scales and keys. Major first..... The site will also help with the minor stuff ---- Chord structure for the natural minor chords are minor, dim, Major, minor, minor, Major, Major. Notice there are three minor chords and three Major chords with one diminished chord. The Major chords have three Major chords, three minor chords and one diminished. Same thing, just in a different order.

Remember your math facts in the 3rd grade? 8+3=11 same thing just get a few facts into memory and you never have to hunt up a scale chart again.

Little humor. Our Granddaughter taught 1st grade last year. I ask her about the math, the Jones' have an inherent problem with math, and she told me with the first grade; "I only take them to the 20", piece of cake. Next year she is teaching kinder-garden so I ask the same question. She replied; Not a problem, we only go up to the 10's in kinder-garden". My point; learn a few memory pegs and it'll all flow together.

Thanks for posting this, it's exactly what i was looking for, cheers!