As much as I hate to admit it.. even after playing guitar for half my life, the thing that helped me most in developing callouses on my two plucking fingers and the coordination to move them in time was playing Rocksmith and Rocksmith 2014. I'm not fond of 90% of the available songs.. but if you have someone living with you with some kind of gaming system.. it's not a bad way to keep the hands in shape.
I think I cracked out for 6 hours one night and had blisters on top of blisters. Since then I went and found an instructor, who honestly wasn't a bassist, but he knew music theory and that's what I had him teach me. I learned the basics of the major scale and it's 7 modes. I stopped seeing him after about 3 months, bought books by Ed Friedland, found many videos by Scott Devine, and I've even signed up for SBA and the courses there are actually helping me after a year of playing with my band, though at times, being not so much a beginner musician I tend to yell at the screen "LESS TALK MORE TEACH", as he tends to go over things very quickly and leave you to the workbooks he wrote out, while having lengthy discussions that don't show me his fingering, or even the structure of what I'm supposed to be learning. it's workable though.
I will say it's probably important to be sure you're getting your right hand technique down and doing it properly from the start. Youtube was my only resource for figuring out what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. I've developed a pretty nasty rest stroke though. Unlearning bad habits is harder than learning proper technique.
The reason I chose emphasis on theory is that, by understanding the tones and modes and intervals and voicings and what modes fit over major/minor chords, and what triads are, and double stops, I also understand the music I listen to. I can hear Aeolian, lydian, mixolydian, harmonic minor and so on in the music I'm listening to. And also having this knowledge gives you room to be creative while remaining inside the building blocks of what's known to be pleasing to the ear. While I know I could learn many songs given enough practice, I have just always been bored with covering music. For me it's all about the creation..owning something and sharing it with people.
Being a bass player you start to hear the bass more in every song you listen to that has bass in it. Whoever James Brown's bassist was., Larry Graham, Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller, and the list goes on and on and on. Almost any type of reggae with a stringed instrument base will offer loads of fun as it's very bass driven. if you get the fundamentals down you'll be able to learn anything you want to almost as soon as you recognize the scales and modes they're using, and when they switch modes without changing the root.
Having played for a year now you're probably a bit passed any help that rocksmith could offer..lol.. but I have to give credit where's it's due. That game gave me two fingertips of steel, as my fretting hand was already calloused by the time I picked up bass.
I think I cracked out for 6 hours one night and had blisters on top of blisters. Since then I went and found an instructor, who honestly wasn't a bassist, but he knew music theory and that's what I had him teach me. I learned the basics of the major scale and it's 7 modes. I stopped seeing him after about 3 months, bought books by Ed Friedland, found many videos by Scott Devine, and I've even signed up for SBA and the courses there are actually helping me after a year of playing with my band, though at times, being not so much a beginner musician I tend to yell at the screen "LESS TALK MORE TEACH", as he tends to go over things very quickly and leave you to the workbooks he wrote out, while having lengthy discussions that don't show me his fingering, or even the structure of what I'm supposed to be learning. it's workable though.
I will say it's probably important to be sure you're getting your right hand technique down and doing it properly from the start. Youtube was my only resource for figuring out what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. I've developed a pretty nasty rest stroke though. Unlearning bad habits is harder than learning proper technique.
The reason I chose emphasis on theory is that, by understanding the tones and modes and intervals and voicings and what modes fit over major/minor chords, and what triads are, and double stops, I also understand the music I listen to. I can hear Aeolian, lydian, mixolydian, harmonic minor and so on in the music I'm listening to. And also having this knowledge gives you room to be creative while remaining inside the building blocks of what's known to be pleasing to the ear. While I know I could learn many songs given enough practice, I have just always been bored with covering music. For me it's all about the creation..owning something and sharing it with people.
Being a bass player you start to hear the bass more in every song you listen to that has bass in it. Whoever James Brown's bassist was., Larry Graham, Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller, and the list goes on and on and on. Almost any type of reggae with a stringed instrument base will offer loads of fun as it's very bass driven. if you get the fundamentals down you'll be able to learn anything you want to almost as soon as you recognize the scales and modes they're using, and when they switch modes without changing the root.
Having played for a year now you're probably a bit passed any help that rocksmith could offer..lol.. but I have to give credit where's it's due. That game gave me two fingertips of steel, as my fretting hand was already calloused by the time I picked up bass.
. A great idea is to practice Ramone songs, with a metronome, very slowly... the speed comes with muscle memory. Not by working at playing it fast and wearing yourself out. You get faster by playing it at whatever speed you can play it perfectly at, over and over and over and over and over.... and then raising it a notch.
