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New too bass and need some help

Keep it loose, fingers, arms, I suggest you just try this exercise, concentrate on doing scales without even really fretting them. This is just to get the feel of being loose. Once you get how loose you can be, and thus how smooth/fast, then slow it down, LISTEN to what you are playing! Learn early to mute the strings you AREN'T playing! Even when you are playing permutations, strive to make it somewhat musical with a groove.
 
i advocate a mixture of:
  • reading technique books so you learn terminology and how to avoid technique errors. Bass for Dummies is a good one.
  • listening to the bass in music you like and trying to figure out whether the line goes up then down and so on so you start to figure things out by ear.
  • get some drum tracks from the internet and imagine what bass you'd put over them