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Quick question for anyone who's done the Talking Bass sight reading course

Horseflesh

Horseflesh

Sep 22, 2020
262
423
Seattle-ish
#1
I own Mark's sight reading courses, but haven't started them yet as I am still learning other fundamentals. I want to get started so I can begin reading music and graduating from tabs... but I am unclear on how much fretboard knowledge you should have before beginning the course.

I could sit down and label every fret on a blank fretboard diagram... but the number of notes that I can easily play without forethought is much much less than that... probably a dozen natural notes that lie on the dots.

To begin the sight reading course, do I need to have mastered all the fingerings first? Or is that part of the course?
 
#4
I bought the TalkingBass course about mid-November and have been working and progressing s l o w l y. Some of the best dollars I spent purely for myself. The course is well laid out. Each part building for the next in a logical progression. I have not yet found spikes where I think I may have missed a lesson. I think you made a good choice.

In the first few 'levels' of the TalkingBass course you will be sticking to the first five frets (on all four strings), and only very very rarely will you need to hit a note on the sixth fret. Not knowing the fret board right away is only a short time problem.

No one is rushing you (I hope) so just take your time. Work slowly and repeat, repeat, repeat. If you get mixed up it probably means you're going too fast or need to backup to part of a previous lesson. Also, you can always write to Mark/Talkingbass and he will respond to your questions.

Another online teacher (Jim Stinnett) tells the story about the time he bought a Carol Kaye bass method book and struggled with figuring out the very first measure. He kept at it (that first measure) and eventually learned how to play it before moving on to the second.

It's good to hear the stories from the great readers and instructors. Even they had to start from somewhere and only human like us.
 
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#5
While my prima-vista skills could certainly use improvement, I do know where all the notes are, and I found that the best method for me was from Mick Goodrick's "The Advancing Guitarist". Not a bass-book per se, but applicable to all fretted instruments. He instructs you in the very beginning of the book to record some modal vamps in C Ionian or its related modes, and then just improvise simple melodies on one string at a time, using only the notes of the c major scale, and mentally noting the names of the notes as you do so. I'd even sing them out loud. After a minute or two you move on to the next string.

After a week of doing this for ten to fifteen minutes a day I was shocked at how well I knew the fretboard.

Another thing I used to do: limiting yourself to the first 12 frets of the bass, play a C on the 4th string. Then on the 3rd string. Then on the 2nd string. Then on the 1st. Then continue with F. Continue up the cycle of fourths.

Start with whole notes, then halves, and once you can make it through the cycle playing quarter notes comfortably at say 70 bpm, you've got a pretty good grip on where the notes are.

Good luck!
 

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