#1 - Education
Currently, the vast majority of my playing (bass and guitar) is via Rocksmith, essentially Guitar Hero with real instruments for those who don't know. And it's fun, but apart from some technique stuff, it doesn't teach much more than how to follow colored dots on a screen. It will get you started on learning some songs, but I don't have very good retention once I'm away from the game.
I've tried teaching myself from a book, but I'd really like to get some online or in-person lessons. I will do my own searching for threads and reviews, but I would welcome any thoughts on progress-based online lessons like the SBL Player's Path or BassBuzz Beginner to Badass. And I would especially appreciate any recommendations for teachers in the Lehigh Valley. (Links to good ska threads would be appreciated, too as that's a genre I'm particularly interested in digging into.)
Much in common!
I started playing guitars ~30 years ago, very seriously for 5-6 years then on and off many times, and then started on bass 2 years ago pretty much on Rocksmith 2014. I found it to be an
excellent tool for many things that traditional studies don't give you: immediate jump into the fire of playing real music on the instrument, quick way of assessing if a particular song is within your comfort zone or not, exposure to hundreds of different rhythms and grooves, discovery of ghost notes and hard-to-transcribe bass parts, encouragement to learn songs start-to-finish... It's not, and cannot be, a solution for everything you need to learn an instrument, but it is one very useful tool.
Retention/memorization is one thing that Rocksmith is not very good at. After a few plays, it starts hiding some of the parts to try and force you to remember them instead of reading them, but it cannot know which parts
you are struggling to remember, so it ends up hiding them effectively at random. I do my memorizations in a different way, although I also don't personally think
remembering songs by memory is important until you need to perform them, but other people disagree.
With 20+ years of experience, you might have under your belt enough wisdom to teach yourself, especially if you have already spent some years under a teacher, even on a different instrument, but maybe that's not your case. The fact that you say yourself you
want to study with a teacher is a sign that this is what you probably need most at the moment and what is going to give you the greatest benefits, so go for it! I have no idea who could be your first teacher where you live, but in very broad terms I would seek a teacher who:
- is actually renowned/appreciated for teaching rather than playing
- has flexible ideas about how to teach, and what to teach, depending on the student
- is good at listening (in both senses: music
and people)
Red flags to watch for in my opinion are teachers who brag about their own achievements, and those who talk too much about money (e.g. have many payment schemes or talk about how much money you can save if you choose them before you even start).
Some of these things may not be easy to know before you start studying with them, but you can always try and change the teacher later. For this reason, I do no recommend to commit into a long-term teaching plan until you are sure you found a good teacher.
#2 - Playing at Home
I live in a second-floor apartment. Playing out loud through an amp at home is something I just don't want to attempt right now. Rocksmith uses a USB cable to the computer, and when I'm not playing the game, I have a Vox amPlug headphone amp. And it's fine, it's just annoying moving things around and figuring out the signal chain if you want to play with any effects. It does have an aux jack, but most phones don't have headphone jacks anymore.
I will do my own searches for ways to play quietly at home and still have things like Spotify or online lessons in the same ears, but links to threads or options would be appreciated.
One good news is that there are more and more musicians going towards in-ear-monitoring (I am one of them, and until a few months ago I thought I never would) and amp-less gigging, so practicing at home with good headphones that make you hear well all your mistakes and noises is not bad.
#3 - Playing with Other People
I'm pretty introverted. I don't get too involved socially at work. And I'm not confident enough in my abilities to answer Craigslist ads for bassists or to show up at a jam at a bar. I'm not even looking to gig. Anything starting out would be really low stakes, just playing for the fun of it.
So I guess I'm asking where you all go to make musician friends and connections that can turn into opportunities to play. What are some of your third spaces where you've found like-minded people to play with? Do you have any advice for an introverted bassist to put themselves out there? I don't know, I feel like there should be more questions here, but the reason for posting here is to hopefully start a discussion. Maybe, if it makes more sense, I'll create a separate thread entirely for advice for introverts.
This is the most difficult question, as it is the most personal and situational...
I am not introverted but when it comes to music I have always been strongly influenced by the presence of other people to play with. Whenever I had a bunch of friends who wanted to make music, my interest into committing to studying and improving has always skyrocketed, and every time our band quitted, it plummeted and I tended to go cold turkey without playing for years. Currently, I have found many people in my working place who played an instrument and wanted to play together, and we were blessed by the opportunity given by our employer to setup a rehearsal room in our office basement. But it all started by chatting with workmates about who was into making music. I have learned that there is generally a very large amount of people who are dabbling in some instrument or want to sing seriously, if I just bring up the conversation anywhere in any social context I might find myself into, I always find someone and most of them are not already busy with a band but waiting for the opportunity to find others. So the only thing I can suggest, is to try and bring up the topic of playing instruments in whatever social group you attend regularly... workplace, school, gym/sport group... if you already know the people even just casually, it might be easier for an introvert than just answering an ad or trying to find people online. Also, once you go to lessons, you can be sure your teacher will know someone who's looking for a bass player!
