Where to start? First is getting to know your bass. How to tune it, how to hold it, how to get sound from it. Will you be using a pick, your fingers or just your thumb to sound the strings, all three will get sound. For all that I recommend the book "Bass Guitar for Dummies" as all that is covered in the first few pages of the book.
Next is what will you use as sheet music. Tab, standard notation, fake chord, or Nashville numbers are some ways you might go. Ask Google to pull up examples of the above mentioned ways so you have some idea what they are.. As you are new to sheet music I recommend you start with fake chord and pounding the note named in the fake chord sheet music - to the beat of the song. If you can chew gum and walk you got it made. Yes it will take a couple of weeks if not a month or so, but, is a start.
Taking lessons have been mentioned and it is here you would save a lot of time if you had another human sitting knee to knee with you. Telling you what to do and giving instant feed back on what you just did. But, as that is out of the question one of the "How to books" and start on page one is my recommendation. Bass Guitar for Dummies for example.
The
Getting Started Sticky (
How to get started?) has a wealth of knowledge in it, and I recommend you spend some time there. However, it does take for granted you already know how to hold the bass, how to tune it and all the other basic skills that must be learned first. So get a copy of Dummies. It is an e-book and you can have a copy tonight.
This monster is best eaten one bite at a time, don't try to eat the whole thing at once as you will get sick of it and stop. The following are examples of what you will need to know beyond where the notes are on your bass neck.
Scale tones for the Major and Natural minor scale and where those notes are on your bass neck. The
Getting Started Sticky will help with that. This will get your fingers moving over your neck, so we do scales tones first, however, we will not be using scale tones to play songs for several years. This is just an exercise that gets you ready for -- Chord tones. Chord tones The notes of the harmonizing chord are what we use right at first. See, or hear, the chord then play it's root note (it's name) to the beat of the music is what we end up doing first. Later we add more chord notes into our bass line, for example R-3-5-8. The get started sticky goes into detail on all those numbers...
When you know where to notes are located - in first position (first 5 frets of your neck) and you can run the C, G and F major scale come back and ask specific questions. Someone will answer.
Good Luck.
