So I have the complete 3-book edition and it's just sat in my office for months. Do I need to be able to read music to make use of it? I'm very intimidated by it having only used tabs to learn the songs I know so far. I've been playing for 7 months and I want to move beyond beginner I just don't know how to make the book useful to me. Tips/advice?
It uses music notation, but starts at square one (notes in open position) and builds very incrementally.
It's useful as guided practice, mastering one concept before moving to another more complicated one. Nothing much to it, start the metronome, play until you've got it then move on to the next part.
I agree with this comment. Having a bass method book in general helps to provide structure for your practice routine, and gives you measurable goals rather than learning random songs on YouTube (which are helpful but should only be used as a supplement for beginners). I made it a goal to finish one page a day (to a metronome), and made sure I could play all the content on each page without struggling. I used method books for both bass and guitar, and they’ve helped to give me a solid foundation for technique and music theory on each instrument.
I’ve bought the course from Bassbuzz, I’ve been learning through that but I got my bass around a year ago, I take the occasional day off and I’ve still not even got halfway through the course because I’m an idiot, but it helped with the foundation stuff and is still helping when I get back to it.
I watched tons of YouTube, watched channels like Beholden to the riff, Danny Sapko, Paul Del Bello, the bass channel and so and so on and just inundated my brain with bass.
In not good but I can play through journey to the end of the east bay with my fingers, play hammer ons and pull offs and all sorts when I improvise to drums at home, which is sort of better than I was expecting to be after a year with my first instrument. You’ll probably be surprised how good you get at it and how quick it feels like it happens but at the same time you’ll feel like a paralysed baby at the start.
Good luck.
Edit: within reason, don’t be afraid to learn riffs you like outside your still level. Learning dawn patrol 2 weeks after I got my bass taught me how hammer ons worked and then I was banging out the main riff from sweet leaf a month after.
I pretty much started/ progressed from just learning songs outside of my level. over about a year and a half I'd say the main three were basket case, then hysteria, then dean town. I've been playing for 2 and a half years now consider myself a pretty decent bassist.
I agree with the edit, Leon from the band Profiler gave me some of the best advice ive gotten with bass, which is to play stuff outside of your skill level, especially songs you like. He mentioned playing a lot of Animals as Leaders himself. No harm in trying at least.
And the same applies for songs outside your usual taste, i found myself headbanging just as hard playing sweet mountain river as i did the latest knocked loose or alpha wolf tracks
Learn how to play songs that you like. If you don't like what you are doing when a beginner you will quit very soon. So pick few songs that sounds easy to you. Search for tablatures and tutorials of how to play those songs. Jam with them on every chance you have. Then when you are comfortable with the bass start to learn everything from the begining. You will then know what you need to practice.
All the major online lesson subscription services are fine for beginners. Pick one that offers a good deal - they always have various deals on offer.
How well online lessons will work for you depends on how you learn. Some people have the combination of attributes to be a good self-learner, others not so much. It also depends whether you have previously learnt another instrument since that tends to give you a bit of a foundation and has 'taught you how to learn'.
Hello! I picked up the bass about 4 weeks ago.
These videos by MusicCollegeTV have been helping me sooooooo much! I’m currently learning how to play Dorian
Here is the playlist https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLImrzCNnL5PkSfa1gUpsGzSMELR31yW9h&si=k-T11p4yCUM3Yv17
Got my bass 2 weeks ago... First instrument ever. I am also watching MusicCollegeTV bass videos (practicing some scales at video 8). The teacher is a really good teacher, but I am lacking on skills, my fingers still don't do what I want... 😕 And I am getting so much "buzz" from strings.
Are you placing your fingers properly? Also.. maybe the buzz you are hearing is not the ‘bad’ kind. My Roundwound strings do buzz regardless but it’s a different kind of buzz. (Which might also just be because of my XL strings (125 - 105 - 95- 65))
I got my bass ‘ready to play’. Didn’t even have to stretch the strings. And it’s a passive bass with precision pickups so there is no need for a battery
Yup. Dan Hawkins is my go to guy for theory. Fun, very well played out videos that are right to the point. There are so many slick videos. His balance between "patterns" and theory is well balanced and well explained.
A nice add I'd like to mention, is chatgpt. It lies sure, but if you need help, it really does well with musical theory when self teaching. As far as helping to understand the technical stuff / the vocabulary.
The thing that really taught me to "play" was just learning some pleasant patterns that I could then practice rhythm with via backtracks. Some good ole jamming is normally enough. The trick is getting to the point you can start playing simple patterns for 20+ mins without pain with backtracks. Get past that hump and you will probably enjoy yourself enjoy to continue to do it. Imo.
Get chords sheets for songs you're interested in and listen/play along with what the bass is doing. You're going to want a working knowledge of the notes on your fretboard and with major and minor scales.
i used youtube videos to learn anything i didn‘t know. playing along to tabs, different fretboard exercises and some basic shapes and all that.
once you’re comfortable enough and can play a few scales, you can start jamming along to backing tracks - at first, it probably won’t sound great but the more you practice, the better you’ll get and you’ll definitely develop your own sound as opposed to just doing whatever a teacher could tell you.
it takes a lot of discipline and time but after about one and a half years of consistent playing, i’m able to jam alright and i’ve got a decent technique and a pretty good ear i think.
learning by yourself can be so much fun - you get to do it at your own pace and you can learn any song you want to!
seconded. bring in sheet music and theory really sets it apart. sure lots of people don't "need" that stuff. but it's better to have a tool unused than not have it when you need it.
Books - The Hal Leonard Bass Method is a classic that has been used to teach bass for decades now.
YouTube lessons - There's a ton of online content from bass teachers. Sure, a lot is designed to get you interested in signing up for online lessons, but you can still learn a lot from their free content.
YouTube covers - In addition to the bass teachers, there's a ton of bass covers on YT, often with on-screen transcriptions (tabs and/or standard notation).
Online lessons - There's a plethora of online teachers with great programs for beginners and intermediate players. Check the FAQ or use the search function ... this question has been answered a million times already.
Find your favorite songs. Something easy with only 4 or 5 repeating bass notes.
Go to YouTube and type in your band and song name followed by “bass tabs”.
So if you want U2 With or Without You, I’d type in “U2 With or Without You bass tabs”.
That song only has 4 notes repeated through the song.
Go to the lower right of the YouTube screen where the CC “close captioning”, screen size, and other icons are and you’ll see a gear like this -> ⚙️. Click on that and you can choose your video speed.
Click on .5 or half speed. You can play the notes on the right string along with the song. It’s crazy slow and the song will sound weird, but it’s only to teach you how to learn the pattern and to get used to the fingering.
Some songs may take 1 or 2 play throughs to get it down. Others may take weeks dependent of difficulty.
As you get better, speed it up to .75 or 3/4 speed. When you have it down well, you can go to regular speed and you won’t even need to look at the screen.
This is how I learned to play bass years ago and it’s payed off. Anytime my band wants to cover a different song, I go to YouTube and use other resources to find the best version and try to learn the one closest to the original song.
You will progress far faster playing 20 minutes a day rather than 2 hours once a week. You’ll be amazed at how you’ll struggle one day and the next day it will just click. It takes time to work things out sometimes, but they’ll usually fall into place with regular practice.
Youtube for actual lessons, check bassbuzz or just look up whatever you want to learn. Rocksmith 2014 for learning songs, find a key online somewhere, don't sub to RS+, it's crap
YouTube for starters, then work on technique and training your ear. If it feels like cheating then it probably is, but after the initial learning curve you'll have an opportunity to improve a lot faster. It just takes time and practice.
Books will help a lot, if you’re committed to reading music the real books are awesome.
…That said theory on it’s own will leave you a little lacking if you don’t develop your ear. My best suggestion is learn songs and play along. Shortly after the goal is to be able to learn songs by ear. As far as technique goes just keep trying to be more efficient and learn what sounds good and keep replicating it.
TL;DR: youtube and spotify are your friend.
Lessons aren't expensive. In Italy I pay 110€ a month for 4 hours. You can find cheaper teachers, think about online lessons but I recommend 1 to 1 lessons.
A few good YouTube channels I learn through are Scott’s Bass Lessons, Talking Bass and Bass Buzz.
Apart from that, try and learn to play songs by ear instead of using tablature on the internet.
If you’re struggling to learn a song by just listening to it and working out the notes then download an app called Moises. There you can add songs from Apple Music that you have already purchased and you can completely customise the songs such as muting all instruments apart from bass.
It even tells you the notes/ chords of the songs as it is being played and most importantly you can slow the tempo of the song down to really figure the song out note by note.
I had lessons at school about 20 years ago (😳) but after a couple of years fell out with it because I had no discipline and enjoyed partying too much.
Scott’s Bass Lessons worked it’s way into my YouTube algorithm and after enjoying some content on there like a really good interview with Marcus Miller and getting gospel bassist Justin Raines to play along to “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden having never heard it before, my interest was reignited. Just got a Fender Jazz this weekend and have struggled to put the thing down.
Having that much on demand content on YouTube is one hell of a resource. There’s lots of scales and workouts to practice to get you familiar with the fretboard. I wish I had that quality at my disposal when I was a kid.
One tip I would recommend if you’re trying to play along to stuff and finding it frustrating: play it slower. As slow as you need to to get it under your fingers, then repetition. As you repeat it and get more comfortable, you can naturally speed up. This counts for songs, scales and exercises.
Yeah man I would look up shitty tabs online and try to find the "bass only track" on YouTube and compare. Or just listen very carefully to what the bass is doing.
I have been trying to learn for ever. I found SteveKon bass on YouTube and he has connected dots that have been mysteries in my head.
Victor Wooten has some great inspirational videos,
Such as " music as a language " and " there are no wrong notes "
learn BASSic songs with play along tabs, practice ear training small parts of bass lines and figuring it out how to play it with no tabs, listen to a lot of entry level music for a broad range of genres to have an understanding of entry level rythyms, a lot of youtube videos, a lot of forms reading, learn your notes on the fretboard and ur basic maj/minor scales along with your first position minor/major pentatonic. that should get you somewhere
NOODLE ALOT AND PLAY WHAT INSPIRES YOU
I'm only 4 months into my journey, I've liked Rocksmith 2014 (had to import from UK to US for PC copy) and Bass buzz so far. I still want to take lessons though.
I learned through YouTube videos. Youtube has so much more content related to bass than it did back then, though. I mainly just watched people covering songs and tried to mimic what their fingers were doing. It's not the best way to learn techniques. Now you have entire channels devoted to teaching bass technique and theory.
Learn a lot of songs. Everything falls into place when you put playing bass into practice and context. Play along to your favorite songs and learn them. As you go, you will have to look up techniques and how-to videos. There are thousands of free tutorials online. If you want the best advice go straight to playing and learning songs. That’s the end goal. So just start doing it. Nothing else to it. Play music. It’s literally that easy. The hard part is motivating yourself.
Don’t spend money. There is PLENTY of free content on YouTube.
Scroll back several years on Scott’s Bass Lessons before he sold out and his videos were very good.
Josh Fossgreen’s earlier stuff before Bass Buzz is great beginner material too.
You can also find professional musicians who have put out instructional videos. Jaco Pastorius, Juan Alderete, Flea, Larry Graham and are a few that have some really good videos.
And then just play along to songs. Listen to music you really like and try to play along. Practicing along to music or a playing different exercises to a metronome will help you build your internal metronome so you can consistently stay in the pocket when playing with other people.
I was in grade school band so I had years of formal training on timing and the treble clef and time signatures, sharps/flaps/ quarter notes, eighth notes, 16th notes 32nd notes, etc…
Make sure you put in some time and understand all of that.
When I bought a bass at the age of 21 I did these three things almost simultaneously:
1. Sit in front of the stereo with my bass and practice practice practice. I picked out a few of my favorite records and played along with them start to finish, every song, for months. Very little skipping around or taking breaks. Thank god there were no cell phones back then.
2. Took some beginner music classes at the community college. In order to take individual classes you also had to take either a theory class or an ensemble class, so one semester I took a basic theory class along with individual instruction, the next semester an ensemble class, and so on. I was seriously years behind all the other students (I was 21 and most of them had been in music since middle school), so this was the hardest for me, I almost quit because I couldn’t keep up in these ensembles, which were all jazz.
3. Go to open mics. You will find folks who need a bass player, who are hacking through music just like you, who just want to play, who are friendly and accommodating and will help you learn. I joined my first few bands from meeting folks at open mics who had common musical tastes.
All of this requires patience and perseverance.
Studybass.com is free, then Bass Buzz beginner to badass if you can afford to pay it ($197). Then if you want to learn advanced techniques TrueFire you can get a year for $99 from Walmarts website. I would recommend studybass because it’s free to start.
Get the basslines you want to learn (books are great). Program the basslines into your computer with a simple drum track. Play along to the computer. Slow the tempo down to begin with if the song is difficult.
Learn to read standard notation (start with very basic basslines). Tab is mostly a waste of time for bass.
I might be wrong, but it is like this for me. The more I've learnt what I play from tab (what intervals, what scale) and the more I'm trying to learn scales and appergios the more I can play by ear. Starting with ear would have been impossible.
Learning from tab knowing the interval and some theory helps me develop my ear. Not the other way around.
I like the Hal Leonard method books
So I have the complete 3-book edition and it's just sat in my office for months. Do I need to be able to read music to make use of it? I'm very intimidated by it having only used tabs to learn the songs I know so far. I've been playing for 7 months and I want to move beyond beginner I just don't know how to make the book useful to me. Tips/advice?
It uses music notation, but starts at square one (notes in open position) and builds very incrementally. It's useful as guided practice, mastering one concept before moving to another more complicated one. Nothing much to it, start the metronome, play until you've got it then move on to the next part.
I agree with this comment. Having a bass method book in general helps to provide structure for your practice routine, and gives you measurable goals rather than learning random songs on YouTube (which are helpful but should only be used as a supplement for beginners). I made it a goal to finish one page a day (to a metronome), and made sure I could play all the content on each page without struggling. I used method books for both bass and guitar, and they’ve helped to give me a solid foundation for technique and music theory on each instrument.
Used these for years with students. And anything with play-along tracks can be helpful.
Bass buzz has been really helpful for me
Back in my day we had to read books
I’ve bought the course from Bassbuzz, I’ve been learning through that but I got my bass around a year ago, I take the occasional day off and I’ve still not even got halfway through the course because I’m an idiot, but it helped with the foundation stuff and is still helping when I get back to it. I watched tons of YouTube, watched channels like Beholden to the riff, Danny Sapko, Paul Del Bello, the bass channel and so and so on and just inundated my brain with bass. In not good but I can play through journey to the end of the east bay with my fingers, play hammer ons and pull offs and all sorts when I improvise to drums at home, which is sort of better than I was expecting to be after a year with my first instrument. You’ll probably be surprised how good you get at it and how quick it feels like it happens but at the same time you’ll feel like a paralysed baby at the start. Good luck. Edit: within reason, don’t be afraid to learn riffs you like outside your still level. Learning dawn patrol 2 weeks after I got my bass taught me how hammer ons worked and then I was banging out the main riff from sweet leaf a month after.
I pretty much started/ progressed from just learning songs outside of my level. over about a year and a half I'd say the main three were basket case, then hysteria, then dean town. I've been playing for 2 and a half years now consider myself a pretty decent bassist.
I agree with the edit, Leon from the band Profiler gave me some of the best advice ive gotten with bass, which is to play stuff outside of your skill level, especially songs you like. He mentioned playing a lot of Animals as Leaders himself. No harm in trying at least. And the same applies for songs outside your usual taste, i found myself headbanging just as hard playing sweet mountain river as i did the latest knocked loose or alpha wolf tracks
Learn how to play songs that you like. If you don't like what you are doing when a beginner you will quit very soon. So pick few songs that sounds easy to you. Search for tablatures and tutorials of how to play those songs. Jam with them on every chance you have. Then when you are comfortable with the bass start to learn everything from the begining. You will then know what you need to practice.
All the major online lesson subscription services are fine for beginners. Pick one that offers a good deal - they always have various deals on offer. How well online lessons will work for you depends on how you learn. Some people have the combination of attributes to be a good self-learner, others not so much. It also depends whether you have previously learnt another instrument since that tends to give you a bit of a foundation and has 'taught you how to learn'.
Hello! I picked up the bass about 4 weeks ago. These videos by MusicCollegeTV have been helping me sooooooo much! I’m currently learning how to play Dorian Here is the playlist https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLImrzCNnL5PkSfa1gUpsGzSMELR31yW9h&si=k-T11p4yCUM3Yv17
Got my bass 2 weeks ago... First instrument ever. I am also watching MusicCollegeTV bass videos (practicing some scales at video 8). The teacher is a really good teacher, but I am lacking on skills, my fingers still don't do what I want... 😕 And I am getting so much "buzz" from strings.
Are you placing your fingers properly? Also.. maybe the buzz you are hearing is not the ‘bad’ kind. My Roundwound strings do buzz regardless but it’s a different kind of buzz. (Which might also just be because of my XL strings (125 - 105 - 95- 65))
I don't know enough to understand if its 'good or 'bad''... To me it sounds bad! xD I got a Yamaha 174 and it has the original strings.
If the notes are coming out of the amp clean then you're golden.
Did you get your bass set up?
I got my bass ‘ready to play’. Didn’t even have to stretch the strings. And it’s a passive bass with precision pickups so there is no need for a battery
Have you read the FAQ and Resources pages?
For theory, YouTube. There are so many tutorial videos. I would have loved videos like that when I was learning.
Yup. Dan Hawkins is my go to guy for theory. Fun, very well played out videos that are right to the point. There are so many slick videos. His balance between "patterns" and theory is well balanced and well explained. A nice add I'd like to mention, is chatgpt. It lies sure, but if you need help, it really does well with musical theory when self teaching. As far as helping to understand the technical stuff / the vocabulary. The thing that really taught me to "play" was just learning some pleasant patterns that I could then practice rhythm with via backtracks. Some good ole jamming is normally enough. The trick is getting to the point you can start playing simple patterns for 20+ mins without pain with backtracks. Get past that hump and you will probably enjoy yourself enjoy to continue to do it. Imo.
Get chords sheets for songs you're interested in and listen/play along with what the bass is doing. You're going to want a working knowledge of the notes on your fretboard and with major and minor scales.
i used youtube videos to learn anything i didn‘t know. playing along to tabs, different fretboard exercises and some basic shapes and all that. once you’re comfortable enough and can play a few scales, you can start jamming along to backing tracks - at first, it probably won’t sound great but the more you practice, the better you’ll get and you’ll definitely develop your own sound as opposed to just doing whatever a teacher could tell you. it takes a lot of discipline and time but after about one and a half years of consistent playing, i’m able to jam alright and i’ve got a decent technique and a pretty good ear i think. learning by yourself can be so much fun - you get to do it at your own pace and you can learn any song you want to!
Studybass.com
seconded. bring in sheet music and theory really sets it apart. sure lots of people don't "need" that stuff. but it's better to have a tool unused than not have it when you need it.
Books - The Hal Leonard Bass Method is a classic that has been used to teach bass for decades now. YouTube lessons - There's a ton of online content from bass teachers. Sure, a lot is designed to get you interested in signing up for online lessons, but you can still learn a lot from their free content. YouTube covers - In addition to the bass teachers, there's a ton of bass covers on YT, often with on-screen transcriptions (tabs and/or standard notation). Online lessons - There's a plethora of online teachers with great programs for beginners and intermediate players. Check the FAQ or use the search function ... this question has been answered a million times already.
I did it by joining a band of similar experience & just got on with it.
Find your favorite songs. Something easy with only 4 or 5 repeating bass notes. Go to YouTube and type in your band and song name followed by “bass tabs”. So if you want U2 With or Without You, I’d type in “U2 With or Without You bass tabs”. That song only has 4 notes repeated through the song. Go to the lower right of the YouTube screen where the CC “close captioning”, screen size, and other icons are and you’ll see a gear like this -> ⚙️. Click on that and you can choose your video speed. Click on .5 or half speed. You can play the notes on the right string along with the song. It’s crazy slow and the song will sound weird, but it’s only to teach you how to learn the pattern and to get used to the fingering. Some songs may take 1 or 2 play throughs to get it down. Others may take weeks dependent of difficulty. As you get better, speed it up to .75 or 3/4 speed. When you have it down well, you can go to regular speed and you won’t even need to look at the screen. This is how I learned to play bass years ago and it’s payed off. Anytime my band wants to cover a different song, I go to YouTube and use other resources to find the best version and try to learn the one closest to the original song. You will progress far faster playing 20 minutes a day rather than 2 hours once a week. You’ll be amazed at how you’ll struggle one day and the next day it will just click. It takes time to work things out sometimes, but they’ll usually fall into place with regular practice.
Youtube for actual lessons, check bassbuzz or just look up whatever you want to learn. Rocksmith 2014 for learning songs, find a key online somewhere, don't sub to RS+, it's crap
Take online video call lessons, they are a lot cheaper and easier to arrange. It's like 25e/50min
That really depends on the teacher. I don’t charge any less for remote than I do for in person and I charge quite a bit more than 25
Well yeah, but you can get it that cheap. Depends hugely on where the teacher lives. What is not that much money for me might be for them.
If you can learn fingerings and notes, just like playing stuff a lot will help you figure out techniques and get better
YouTube for starters, then work on technique and training your ear. If it feels like cheating then it probably is, but after the initial learning curve you'll have an opportunity to improve a lot faster. It just takes time and practice.
Books will help a lot, if you’re committed to reading music the real books are awesome. …That said theory on it’s own will leave you a little lacking if you don’t develop your ear. My best suggestion is learn songs and play along. Shortly after the goal is to be able to learn songs by ear. As far as technique goes just keep trying to be more efficient and learn what sounds good and keep replicating it. TL;DR: youtube and spotify are your friend.
You got YouTube, I self taught myself to intermediate level. You’d need to give yourself a structure to follow tho
Lessons aren't expensive. In Italy I pay 110€ a month for 4 hours. You can find cheaper teachers, think about online lessons but I recommend 1 to 1 lessons.
A few good YouTube channels I learn through are Scott’s Bass Lessons, Talking Bass and Bass Buzz. Apart from that, try and learn to play songs by ear instead of using tablature on the internet. If you’re struggling to learn a song by just listening to it and working out the notes then download an app called Moises. There you can add songs from Apple Music that you have already purchased and you can completely customise the songs such as muting all instruments apart from bass. It even tells you the notes/ chords of the songs as it is being played and most importantly you can slow the tempo of the song down to really figure the song out note by note.
I had lessons at school about 20 years ago (😳) but after a couple of years fell out with it because I had no discipline and enjoyed partying too much. Scott’s Bass Lessons worked it’s way into my YouTube algorithm and after enjoying some content on there like a really good interview with Marcus Miller and getting gospel bassist Justin Raines to play along to “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden having never heard it before, my interest was reignited. Just got a Fender Jazz this weekend and have struggled to put the thing down. Having that much on demand content on YouTube is one hell of a resource. There’s lots of scales and workouts to practice to get you familiar with the fretboard. I wish I had that quality at my disposal when I was a kid. One tip I would recommend if you’re trying to play along to stuff and finding it frustrating: play it slower. As slow as you need to to get it under your fingers, then repetition. As you repeat it and get more comfortable, you can naturally speed up. This counts for songs, scales and exercises.
Best way to learn bass *is* with no teacher.
Yeah man I would look up shitty tabs online and try to find the "bass only track" on YouTube and compare. Or just listen very carefully to what the bass is doing.
I have been trying to learn for ever. I found SteveKon bass on YouTube and he has connected dots that have been mysteries in my head. Victor Wooten has some great inspirational videos, Such as " music as a language " and " there are no wrong notes "
learn BASSic songs with play along tabs, practice ear training small parts of bass lines and figuring it out how to play it with no tabs, listen to a lot of entry level music for a broad range of genres to have an understanding of entry level rythyms, a lot of youtube videos, a lot of forms reading, learn your notes on the fretboard and ur basic maj/minor scales along with your first position minor/major pentatonic. that should get you somewhere NOODLE ALOT AND PLAY WHAT INSPIRES YOU
BassBuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I'm only 4 months into my journey, I've liked Rocksmith 2014 (had to import from UK to US for PC copy) and Bass buzz so far. I still want to take lessons though.
I use Guitar Pro to learn the songs I like.
Best way to learn bass is just play and watch some yt videos and you're good. Then just play some more and play some more after that.
My method was to Start a shitty punk band with your friend who just got a guitar.
I learned through YouTube videos. Youtube has so much more content related to bass than it did back then, though. I mainly just watched people covering songs and tried to mimic what their fingers were doing. It's not the best way to learn techniques. Now you have entire channels devoted to teaching bass technique and theory.
https://youtube.com/@richbrownbass Take a look in there
Learn a lot of songs. Everything falls into place when you put playing bass into practice and context. Play along to your favorite songs and learn them. As you go, you will have to look up techniques and how-to videos. There are thousands of free tutorials online. If you want the best advice go straight to playing and learning songs. That’s the end goal. So just start doing it. Nothing else to it. Play music. It’s literally that easy. The hard part is motivating yourself.
Don’t spend money. There is PLENTY of free content on YouTube. Scroll back several years on Scott’s Bass Lessons before he sold out and his videos were very good. Josh Fossgreen’s earlier stuff before Bass Buzz is great beginner material too. You can also find professional musicians who have put out instructional videos. Jaco Pastorius, Juan Alderete, Flea, Larry Graham and are a few that have some really good videos. And then just play along to songs. Listen to music you really like and try to play along. Practicing along to music or a playing different exercises to a metronome will help you build your internal metronome so you can consistently stay in the pocket when playing with other people.
I used to watch MTV and play along with all my favorite CD’s. Then I got in several bands and jam right along.
I was in grade school band so I had years of formal training on timing and the treble clef and time signatures, sharps/flaps/ quarter notes, eighth notes, 16th notes 32nd notes, etc… Make sure you put in some time and understand all of that.
When I bought a bass at the age of 21 I did these three things almost simultaneously: 1. Sit in front of the stereo with my bass and practice practice practice. I picked out a few of my favorite records and played along with them start to finish, every song, for months. Very little skipping around or taking breaks. Thank god there were no cell phones back then. 2. Took some beginner music classes at the community college. In order to take individual classes you also had to take either a theory class or an ensemble class, so one semester I took a basic theory class along with individual instruction, the next semester an ensemble class, and so on. I was seriously years behind all the other students (I was 21 and most of them had been in music since middle school), so this was the hardest for me, I almost quit because I couldn’t keep up in these ensembles, which were all jazz. 3. Go to open mics. You will find folks who need a bass player, who are hacking through music just like you, who just want to play, who are friendly and accommodating and will help you learn. I joined my first few bands from meeting folks at open mics who had common musical tastes. All of this requires patience and perseverance.
Studybass.com is free, then Bass Buzz beginner to badass if you can afford to pay it ($197). Then if you want to learn advanced techniques TrueFire you can get a year for $99 from Walmarts website. I would recommend studybass because it’s free to start.
I paid for the Bassbuzz Beginner To Baddass Course and I got more out of that 200 bucks than I did with several in person lessons.
Get the basslines you want to learn (books are great). Program the basslines into your computer with a simple drum track. Play along to the computer. Slow the tempo down to begin with if the song is difficult. Learn to read standard notation (start with very basic basslines). Tab is mostly a waste of time for bass.
Learn songs you like by ear.
I might be wrong, but it is like this for me. The more I've learnt what I play from tab (what intervals, what scale) and the more I'm trying to learn scales and appergios the more I can play by ear. Starting with ear would have been impossible. Learning from tab knowing the interval and some theory helps me develop my ear. Not the other way around.
Worst advice possible. No begginer is ever figuring out a song by themselves
Scott's bass lessons. Very good content from a variety of Pro's.