Blogging About Bass
If you ask me 2016 seemed to be a bit of a musical disaster. We lost way too many incredible musicians and had the craziest election year I have ever witnessed. I myself started the year with several well-intentioned musical goals but sadly did not manage to achieve any of them. Let this be my attempt to kick things into gear again for the new year. I’ve dragged my heels for far too long working through Teach Me Bass Guitar. 2017 is the year that I finish it!
Lesson 16 of TMBG takes us into what Roy refers to as “The Working Bassist’s Toolkit” which focuses on skills a bass player will need to have if they want to play professionally. The first lesson in the toolkit stresses the importance of learning to sight-read. Roy discusses Tablature (TAB) and while it can be useful for beginners, it is not something that you will encounter in an arrangement or professional working situation.
Lesson 15 of the Teach Me Bass Guitar focuses mainly on the technique of two-handed tapping. Roy refers to this technique as a “Spice”, meaning a little is okay, but too much can be a bad thing. Two-handed tapping is more of a “Look at me” style of playing, not something you would make a living out of doing.
Before I get into my review of Lesson 14 of Teach Me Bass Guitar I would like to talk a little about my journey so far. Looking back I am realizing that it has been more than 5 years since I started My Journey with Teach Me Bass Guitar. In that time I have had numerous ups and down in my life, but have continued to work through the course at my own pace. Upon completing Lesson 13 and returning from Roy Vogt’s Bass Boot Camp in 2013 I decided that I rushed through too many of the lessons and that I would start the course over. Working through the course a second time I feel I had a greater understanding of the concepts presented and thus got lot more out of it than I did the first time. This journey has taken me longer than I ever anticipated, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have learned so much about music and playing bass, and met so many incredible people along my path, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Today I am proud to say that I have worked my way back through to Lesson 13 and am close to completing Lesson 14. To some it may seem long over due, but to me it seems just about right.
Teach Me Bass Guitar, Roy Vogt’s comprehensive, effective and entertaining self-paced bass guitar instructional course is now available for Streaming and Digital Download.
Several options are available to get you going right away. You can order the full course, bundles for beginner, intermediate, or advanced players, or purchase one lesson at a time. No matter which option you choose, once purchased, you own them. No recurring fees or subscriptions are needed to maintain access to your content. You buy it, you own it. Downloads are available for Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch , Android devices, and can be streamed online via a web browser.
Our last day of TMBG Bass Camp came much too fast. I can’t speak for the others but I feel like I’ve learned more in the last week than I have in the past 6 months. It’s been such a great week, I don’t want it to end.
We started out the morning with a great wrap session with Roy and Tim talking about things we should be working on and thinking about, as well as tips on how to take our playing to the next level. Both Tim and Roy are such a wealth of information, it was awesome to just pick their brains for a while.
Lately I have come to realize that I have trouble practicing effectively. I have every good intention to practice, but tend to procrastinate before doing so, looking for any excuse to delay my start. Of course this is a terrible thing to do as it cuts into my already limited practice time. Part of the problem is that I don’t really have a regular practice routine. I think about things I need to work on, and may start on them but typically end up playing along to songs I already know. While some of this is justified as “homework” for band practice, mostly it is just the easy way to fool myself into feeling like I had a good practice session.
It has been a long time coming, but here at last is my humble review for Lesson 13 of Teach Me Bass Guitar. Coming in at just under an hour, Ashley kicks us off by telling us we will learn all about Diatonic Modes, how to use them, plus how to transpose into any key. From here Roy shows us a new warm up exercise which consists of tapping notes and pulling off, starting on the 5th fret. This warm up is similar to the 4×4 exercise we learned early on, but with a bit of a twist.
As you may have noticed, I have slowed way down on my progress through the Teach Me Bass Guitar course. While I admit I have been a bit lax as of late on my studies, I am indeed still working on my lessons, specifically lesson 13.
A few months ago I decide it was time for me to get out of the woodshed, and as such, went out and joined a band. While it has been a great thing and I am definitely seeing some marked improvement, it has, alas, cut into the limited time I have to practice, or blog for that matter. As would be expected, as I progress the lessons are getting more and more difficult. Furthermore, I realized a while back that I was pretty much just zipping through the lessons, learning the example songs for the given lesson then calling it a day and moving on. I came to realize that in doing this that I was really short changing myself, and not fully learning everything that I needed to learn before progressing. Now I am trying to take my time through these lessons and really absorb what is being taught. In lesson 13 for example, I am taking the time to work through the scales and concepts presented, in every key, not just the two or three Roy uses in his examples.
Here’s a clip of me playing along to the backing track for the tune “Turn Down” from Lesson 12 of Teach Me Bass Guitar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa2OjvAh854