The thing is, as you can see from this thread, that everyone has (sometimes contradictorily) different opinions on what the best thing to do is. I think it's important to consider that the random Talkbass user may not have the best idea about how to break through a plateau.
You seem to have some pretty specific goals, which is great! Try to find trusted resources from renowned players/educators (they're not always synonymous) on what to start working on. A private teacher is especially helpful in this regard because they can steer you in the right direction and evaluate your playing as it stands, but I know private instruction is not always financially viable for everyone.
And even though I'm just one of those random users I talked about, my personal opinion is that you should figure out completely bass lines by ear. Online tablature and YouTube tutorials MAY be helpful to use as an answer key with which to check your work after you've aurally transcribed it, but I've found that user-posted tabs and tutorials are very often inaccurate. Another huge thing if you want to work toward improvisation is to have the names of the notes on the fretboard down. Scales are a very good way to go about this and a background in reading definitely helps. These really are just starting points, and the journey gets a lot more complex and rewarding from here.
Last thing—try not to let yourself be overwhelmed by the amount of things you CAN learn. The ultimate goal of playing is to have fun, and there's no need to feel like you have to be able to do it all right away.
You seem to have some pretty specific goals, which is great! Try to find trusted resources from renowned players/educators (they're not always synonymous) on what to start working on. A private teacher is especially helpful in this regard because they can steer you in the right direction and evaluate your playing as it stands, but I know private instruction is not always financially viable for everyone.
And even though I'm just one of those random users I talked about, my personal opinion is that you should figure out completely bass lines by ear. Online tablature and YouTube tutorials MAY be helpful to use as an answer key with which to check your work after you've aurally transcribed it, but I've found that user-posted tabs and tutorials are very often inaccurate. Another huge thing if you want to work toward improvisation is to have the names of the notes on the fretboard down. Scales are a very good way to go about this and a background in reading definitely helps. These really are just starting points, and the journey gets a lot more complex and rewarding from here.
Last thing—try not to let yourself be overwhelmed by the amount of things you CAN learn. The ultimate goal of playing is to have fun, and there's no need to feel like you have to be able to do it all right away.
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