Well, since I've been home from my day job for just over a month now, I have really taken advantage and applied the free time to practicing.
I have been playing bass for 18 years, I have a music degree, and am always looking for study/inspiration. Because I always see adds on instagram and youtube videos, I decided to take advantage of the free trial for scottsbasslessons.com and see if it be a good resource for myself and my students. My opinion could be about any paid learning really. To be honest, I never expect much from these types of video courses, but I gave it a shot.
My cut and dry opinion: I will not be continuing my subscription. While the experience may be great for a beginner, once a player reaches an intermediate level, they probably wouldn't or shouldn't continue with this type of instruction.
Scott Devine seems like a really cool guy just trying to develop a community, and honestly making a resource with the best of intentions. My problems with his site could be personal.
There's nothing wrong with the site at all, the information on it, its delivery, organization, and guest instructors. Its a great site.
My issues are: Some of the course titles are misleading or improperly named. This causes you to encounter repeated information under the guise of a new title. For example: Rich Brown has a course called 'mastering the modes' and scott has a course called 'harmonic layering'. These two courses basically relay the same information, in a different delivery. Nothing wrong with them, but I don't like wasting time discovering that they cover the same material. None of the information found on this site is exclusive. Its just music. (Im aware all video lessons are like this, but some readers may not be, I'm just checking it out on their behalf). There are plenty of non famous people on youtube delivering the very same information. Picking the video courses feels a bit like finishing my popcorn while surfing the netflix menu before making a selection. There isn't any course that I'm specifically interested in or disinterested in. Some of the lessons seem very context specific (for example Adam Neely's lesson about playing swung quintuplets really only instructed me on how to hear his weird composition, and wasn't really something I was asking for, nor is it something I'm dying to practice). When you do finally pick a course, they feel like what could have been an hour long lesson is edited and stretched into multiple parts over a few hours, and there is often too much banter. Its really just better to go to each course and download the pdf packs that they come with. You can get through the courses much quicker by reading them. My patience was certainly tested by the length of some videos. One thing I disliked about all technique based instructional videos, is that they often explain things that a musician is bound discover on their own. Beginners don't see this at first, but it really sucks to be pulled into a video for a specific instruction only to figure out halfway through the video that you don't need to be refreshed on this concept, sometimes they feel like click-bait. The lessons are not tailored to you, and you if you are seeking instruction then why should you be qualified to pick which lessons you need? Its contradictory, and often you become overwhelmed with information.
One of the ways the site tries to incorporate a more personal teaching experience is by having live seminars where the user is able to chat and interact with the instructor. Thats cool, but these are scheduled and the instructor may be different from time to time. This kind of defeats the purpose of an 'on demand' learning platform, while trying not to do just that.
You also get messages about completing a practice log and keeping up with the community on their forum. These are great, but again, you can do the very same for free here on talkbass.
To conclude, it wasn't for me. Some of the instructors Scott has got are really a treat. However, when it comes to some of the players of youtube fame, I find it harder to be inspired by a player known for instagram clips and youtube clickbait videos than those on important recordings, but thats an opinion on social media musicians generally though.
My alternatives for curious bass students:
Plenty of free youtube lessons/lectures for music theory, you don't need celebrity players to teach you these concepts. Your library will also have plenty of free music theory resources. MarloweDK has a backlog of ten years worth of bass instruction on his channel for example.
The Jazz Bass Line Book by Mike Downes, literally covers a ton of universal harmonic and rhythmic concepts and applies them to walking bass lines. The concepts are explained in a few sentences, leaving you more time to apply them to the bass. It the best jazz instruction book for bass, and thats after years of using the Rufus Reid book.
Any of the books by Janek Gwizdala. The pdf's are pretty reasonably priced. His lessons are quick, and cover hours of practice in a simple paragraph. His etudes are musical, and challenging.
Bass Grimoire: a Big red book of scales. It maps out the scales on the fretboard, and tells you which chords are compatible. It doesn't tell you how to practice them, but scale practice methods are universally applicable. Plenty of online resources for scale practice.
Jeff Berlin's Chord Tone System: it has every chord tone pattern found in the most common chord types on the bass.
Anthony Wellington's 'Yard Stick' of rhythm concept. Not a book, but a concept he teaches in Victor Wooten's Groove Workshop video. Its on youtube. Teaches you how to feel subdivisions.
'Slap It!' A classic book on slap bass technique, and a great book for practicing reading.
Playing with fellow musicians, or more experienced musicians.
There is an endless list of resources I could list here.
Your favourite bass players play on records. Learn their lines, and analyze which techniques and concepts they are applying. Nothing sucks more than learning a technique that you never end up using because some video recommended that you do. Nothing propelled my learning more than learning lines from Flea, Geddy Lee, Stuart Zender, Jamerson, Jaco and many others... This is the way you will engrain concepts and techniques from music that speaks to you. Its all there. Music is a language and if something speaks to you, then that means you have an understanding of that sound, pursue what speaks to you.
I have been playing bass for 18 years, I have a music degree, and am always looking for study/inspiration. Because I always see adds on instagram and youtube videos, I decided to take advantage of the free trial for scottsbasslessons.com and see if it be a good resource for myself and my students. My opinion could be about any paid learning really. To be honest, I never expect much from these types of video courses, but I gave it a shot.
My cut and dry opinion: I will not be continuing my subscription. While the experience may be great for a beginner, once a player reaches an intermediate level, they probably wouldn't or shouldn't continue with this type of instruction.
Scott Devine seems like a really cool guy just trying to develop a community, and honestly making a resource with the best of intentions. My problems with his site could be personal.
There's nothing wrong with the site at all, the information on it, its delivery, organization, and guest instructors. Its a great site.
My issues are: Some of the course titles are misleading or improperly named. This causes you to encounter repeated information under the guise of a new title. For example: Rich Brown has a course called 'mastering the modes' and scott has a course called 'harmonic layering'. These two courses basically relay the same information, in a different delivery. Nothing wrong with them, but I don't like wasting time discovering that they cover the same material. None of the information found on this site is exclusive. Its just music. (Im aware all video lessons are like this, but some readers may not be, I'm just checking it out on their behalf). There are plenty of non famous people on youtube delivering the very same information. Picking the video courses feels a bit like finishing my popcorn while surfing the netflix menu before making a selection. There isn't any course that I'm specifically interested in or disinterested in. Some of the lessons seem very context specific (for example Adam Neely's lesson about playing swung quintuplets really only instructed me on how to hear his weird composition, and wasn't really something I was asking for, nor is it something I'm dying to practice). When you do finally pick a course, they feel like what could have been an hour long lesson is edited and stretched into multiple parts over a few hours, and there is often too much banter. Its really just better to go to each course and download the pdf packs that they come with. You can get through the courses much quicker by reading them. My patience was certainly tested by the length of some videos. One thing I disliked about all technique based instructional videos, is that they often explain things that a musician is bound discover on their own. Beginners don't see this at first, but it really sucks to be pulled into a video for a specific instruction only to figure out halfway through the video that you don't need to be refreshed on this concept, sometimes they feel like click-bait. The lessons are not tailored to you, and you if you are seeking instruction then why should you be qualified to pick which lessons you need? Its contradictory, and often you become overwhelmed with information.
One of the ways the site tries to incorporate a more personal teaching experience is by having live seminars where the user is able to chat and interact with the instructor. Thats cool, but these are scheduled and the instructor may be different from time to time. This kind of defeats the purpose of an 'on demand' learning platform, while trying not to do just that.
You also get messages about completing a practice log and keeping up with the community on their forum. These are great, but again, you can do the very same for free here on talkbass.
To conclude, it wasn't for me. Some of the instructors Scott has got are really a treat. However, when it comes to some of the players of youtube fame, I find it harder to be inspired by a player known for instagram clips and youtube clickbait videos than those on important recordings, but thats an opinion on social media musicians generally though.
My alternatives for curious bass students:
Plenty of free youtube lessons/lectures for music theory, you don't need celebrity players to teach you these concepts. Your library will also have plenty of free music theory resources. MarloweDK has a backlog of ten years worth of bass instruction on his channel for example.
The Jazz Bass Line Book by Mike Downes, literally covers a ton of universal harmonic and rhythmic concepts and applies them to walking bass lines. The concepts are explained in a few sentences, leaving you more time to apply them to the bass. It the best jazz instruction book for bass, and thats after years of using the Rufus Reid book.
Any of the books by Janek Gwizdala. The pdf's are pretty reasonably priced. His lessons are quick, and cover hours of practice in a simple paragraph. His etudes are musical, and challenging.
Bass Grimoire: a Big red book of scales. It maps out the scales on the fretboard, and tells you which chords are compatible. It doesn't tell you how to practice them, but scale practice methods are universally applicable. Plenty of online resources for scale practice.
Jeff Berlin's Chord Tone System: it has every chord tone pattern found in the most common chord types on the bass.
Anthony Wellington's 'Yard Stick' of rhythm concept. Not a book, but a concept he teaches in Victor Wooten's Groove Workshop video. Its on youtube. Teaches you how to feel subdivisions.
'Slap It!' A classic book on slap bass technique, and a great book for practicing reading.
Playing with fellow musicians, or more experienced musicians.
There is an endless list of resources I could list here.
Your favourite bass players play on records. Learn their lines, and analyze which techniques and concepts they are applying. Nothing sucks more than learning a technique that you never end up using because some video recommended that you do. Nothing propelled my learning more than learning lines from Flea, Geddy Lee, Stuart Zender, Jamerson, Jaco and many others... This is the way you will engrain concepts and techniques from music that speaks to you. Its all there. Music is a language and if something speaks to you, then that means you have an understanding of that sound, pursue what speaks to you.
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And I have no problems with that as long as my teacher continues being himself and teaching the way he does 
