Matty, first of all, I love ya, buddy. However, I am a bit curious. You have been on TB since 2014. What have you been doing all that time (besides reading and posting?) Six years is an awfully long time to be posting your questions and rant about bass instruction after this much time. How long have you actually been trying to learn the bass?
As far as having instruction in a school band environment when you are young, well that may or not make a difference. I played the bass/tuba in junior high and high school. I graduated in '72. Didn't play another musical instrument since. In early 2019 I decided I wanted to play the bass guitar. Plenty of bass guitar instructors around me (Houston). I have ADHD so working with an instructor is not for me, it would frustrate me.
I bought instructional books, bass song books and a metronome. Started slow and worked my speed up. Even the most basic lessons helps you, to learn the fret board and enhances muscle memory.
Then I signed up for Josh's lessons over on BASSBUZZ and Mark over at TALKINGBASS. Great instructors and great lessons.
If I can do it, so can you.
TL-DR - blame yourself for asking for my life story revolving around music.
Let's see. I was given my first stringed instrument when I was 14 years old. A Peavey stratocaster copy. My dad taught me a simple riff to develop the ability to fret a note and pick a little bit.. and then taught me the blues scale. That was all the instruction I got for about 3 years. I mostly *attempted* to play along with music I heard on the radio or from my favorite albums. A lot of drop D, bits and pieces of Metallica/Pantera songs. A lot of just noodling around learning my fretboard via the process of elimination with what sounds worked and didn't.
At 17, fresh out of school with my GED I met a jazz bass major who was exceptionally gifted (funny how the educated musicians I've met are so talented ain't it? Where only a handful of the self taught musicians I know a stand out as extremely gifted ) He taught me the major scale and its 7 modes. And my creativity took off with it. Unfortunately, that guy decided to go fugitive and ran away from his probation officer regarding a marijauna charge and I've not heard from him since. I would spent an hour of every day of my life with him if I could.
I dabbled in guitar for several years off and on. Owned a couple 7 strings. Met some kids who turned me onto funk and various styles of music outside of my angry teenage love for metal. It wasn't til my mid to late twenties that I realized I had developed a lot of really really bad habits and started working on correcting them, made some progress, but I was chilling with a friend's band.. and my buddy had this G&L sitting around.. and when I picked it up I fell in love with it. I could kind of play it.. but only with a pick. Still, I loved that bass so much, when I had the money in my pocket at about age 30-31.. well I ended up buying an Ibanez SR500.
I spent the first month of owning that bass just playing open notes to develop some coordination in the index and middle finger of my right hand. I then played rocksmith to make it less tedious. I bought Hal Leonard's Bass Method.. went through it and played everything by ear, felt unimpressed by it. Then i saw a video from Scott Devine.. who helped me better understand the raking technique because I'm an audio learner and hands on kind of guy, and focused on not developing bad picking hand habits with this instrument. At this point I signed up at a local music instruction studio, where I got bass lessons from a guitar major who refreshed my understanding of the major scale. He couldn't help me with my technique.. he played bass with one finger. It didn't last long, as we mostly BS'd about nothing during my paid sessions. That must've been 2013-2014. I signed up for Talkbass, got some help with gear choices. I signed up for SBL.
And to twofinger's credit.. part of it is patience.. part of it is the plethora of information I had access to. I wanted to imrpove everything at once. I end up spending hours of a day working on one lesson, then trying to put that into smaller doses throughout the day, and add other bits of information into my routine. About 15 minutes on technique and theory, but mostly, I like to try and make my own music with my limited knowledge.
I joined my first band who wrote original music, we were featured in a local magazine, we wrote like 4 albums worth of material in a matter of 6 months. I had people from local bands praising me on some of my first gigs with them, and I'm not the worst bass player in the world. But.. I'm pretty mediocre and would like to improve in anyway I can. That band had some ego issues, were friends of over a decade, and people just weren't treating each other right. So it imploded.. I quit before what was to be our biggest show yet, because as good as the music was in my opinion, peoples attitudes were just wrong, and it was starting to be a think of partying and drugs and disrespecting friendships. And I took a few years off from playing music, and people in general.
I met a piano teacher one day who inspired me to start playing music again. And I really had to knock some rust off, but I'm about back to where I was skill wise.. but hitting a plateau in what I consider rather mediocre skill, despite some people from the local scene having offered some very generous compliments in the past.
Recently I've reopened the Hal Leonard book trying to use it as a tool to help develop sight reading. I've bought multiple books on theory. I have The ultimate Guitar Grimoire laying around.. and I can play. I just want to play better. I want more confidence over the fretboard and my ability to get creative and move beyond what I'm already able to do. I've also recently decided to tackle slap, and earlier this year for the first time in my life I have some sense of comfort in slap bass.
Today I put in a the first dvd of a 6 dvd series called "Slap bass in 6 weeks" The first dvd, I'm like, no problem boss. It was so easy it was boring. The second dvd, he starts using a relatively simple chromatic walking line Larry Graham likes use. And the first few exercises around that walking line are stupid simple again.
Then we get to the one that is a challenge. The first time he plays it, is slow, and nothing like the tempo he actually plays the lesson in. There are also backing tracks provided for these exercises, meaning the tempo he demonstrates in, is the only tempo you really have to work with, and the exercises are to a specific beat.
So I'm expecting something really simple to play, as has been the course up to now. And he's like, "Ok here we go" and it's way way faster than i anticipated. So first I had to stop the video, ignore the provided backing track, and get a click running. I start playing what I think I heard to that beat.. turns out I'm way wrong when i go back to the DVD. After about 15-30 minutes I finally figure out how to play the line at a slower tempo to just a metronome. And I'll have to spend a few days catching up with him.
Point being though.. the instructor only offers one demonstration at speed, and provides a backing track at speed. I'll figure it out, but the fact that the video goes from stupid slow and simple techniques and practice to "Let's see if you can keep up with this" seems to add a layer of tedium that offered frustration.
Anyway.. to put it simply, his example is only useful when I can play it at speed. The material provided does nothing to help me achieve that other than, I know what notes to play. I can't use his provided backing track. I can't follow along on the video until I can manage doing it all at speed.. I put about 35minutes into it this morning. Will readdress it again.. probably feel better about it in a couple days.. maybe it'll take me a week. But again where I sought instruction, I'm stuck teaching myself how to accomplish it.. and I just happen to think that there are probably methods that could've gone into the dvd and learning material to help me accomplish that a little easier.
To the point of "I took music a kid, quit, and decided as an adult I wanted to play bass." I know first hand how musical ability and the ability to understand the language can deteriorate over time if you don't regularly use it. Especially in us feeble minded older guys whos minds are so full of crap that we can barely remember what we did 5 seconds ago.
However, if you hadn't quit music as a student and incorporated it into your every day life.. I'm inclined to believe your technical ability would probably be farther along than it is now.
If anything, rhythms are my strong suit.
