Starting Over

[A. L. McCaslin]

Hey all, I'm looking to get back into the bass. I played for about 5 years, but was never fantastic. It's been close to 3 years since I've played. I want to get back into it the right way. What would you recommend as far as habits, exercises, etc.? I know very basic music theory, but almost never applied it to bass. I'm not super familiar with bass scales. I'm going to try to learn to read standard notation for bass.

Side note: I've started reading The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten. Ohhhhhh man....

 

[MalcolmAmos]

Welcome back. Running your scales is a great way to get your fingers moving over your fretboard. Might think about using an instructor this time to get you started. Four to eight lessons would be time well spent. You can teach yourself, however, an instructor will save you a lot of time in the long run. And correct any bad habits you may have picked up in that other life.

There is some good information on this string. How to get started? | TalkBass.com

Good luck.

 

[Mushroo]

A few random tips in no particular order:

Get some friends together and do some jamming.
Listen to your favorite album or radio station and jam along.
Get some sheet music. Listen to the recording and follow along in the sheet music, like you are a kid trying to puzzle out the words on the page while your parents read to you.
Sing in the car, in the shower, while you are walking or running errands. Whistle while you work.
Go out and support live local music. Network with other musicians. Dance and have fun!

 

[A. L. McCaslin]

Thanks for the tips guys!

 

[Lobster11]

Welcome back to the low end.

I suggest that you approach this initially as if you were starting over from scratch, beginning with the most basic fundamentals such as fretting-hand technique, plucking and/or picking technique, left- and right-hand muting, etc. If you never really learned these basics properly, or if you developed any bad habits over your five years of playing, now is the perfect time to focus on getting these things right: It will be a lot easier to "un-learn" previous bad habits and develop new, better ones right now, as you're getting (re-started), and it will pay big dividends going forward.

 

[mambo4]

I'm going to try to learn to read standard notation for bass.

For getting started on bass with a serious pursuit of reading,
the most consistently recommended book on talk bass is probably this:
Ed Friedland's Hal Leonard Bass Method - Complete Edition

 

[Thuddy Waters]