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Online Lessons - Beta Testers Wanted!If you've followed the link here, then thanks for coming. This page is uploaded about 9 months before I anticipated setting it up - but a couple of readers of the ezine (normal folks, just like you ) have sent me emails that have made me revise my timetable. There's gonna be no hype here, no high pressured selling, no internet marketing bullshit. I'm just going to tell it how it is, if you're interested that's great, I'd love to have you aboard. Anyway, let me start the wrong way: Why You Shouldn't Take My Online Lessons My series of online lessons won't be a perfect fit for every bass player and I won't pretend otherwise. If any of these describe you, you'd be disappointed if you took my lessons: Don't take my online lessons if you are looking for a magic bullet that will make you play like Victor Wooten, Geddy Lee, Billy Sheehan, Steve Harris, John Deacon or any of those other bass playing dudes we look up to. Don't take my online lessons if you think 10 minutes a day will get you through. The bass players we all admire are guys who spent their time learning their instruments, spent their time honing their craft, spent their time working hard and being persistant. If you wanna be a bass player and you're looking for instant or easy, I'm sorry to tell you it doesn't exist. All of the guys we admire have invested thousands of hours down the years learning to do what they do... Don't take my online lessons if you want to be famous, get signed by a record company, get on MTV, etc etc etc. Some bassists do make it this way, but you've got just as much chance of winning the lottery and that's much easier. Good bass players are always in demand and the ones who succeed long-term are the ones who work hard and constantly test themself and put the hours in.
My online lessons are for bassists who want to learn how to play the bass. Period. It doesn't matter whether you're into rock, or funk, or country, or soul, or hip hop, or gospel, or whatever. The fundamentals are the same in every genre - once you've learned the fundamentals of the bass guitar then you can learn what the stylistic differences between them are, so if you wanna play country then you can. Or rock. Or funk. Or whatever does it for you. ONLINE LESSONS Now, my lessons are based around the 50 songs concept. Go on, check the page(s) out then come back. I'll be waiting with a cup of coffee....
You back? Good, let's move on So how is this going to work? Good question. That's why I'm asking for Beta Testers. I'm looking for 5-10 bassists who want to learn how to play the bass, who've seen enough of my videos on YouTube or on this site,or have read some of the content on the website or in the eZine, and who like my style of teaching. I'll then take those 5-10 bassists through my 50 lesson course - at their pace - and teach them how to play bass. The core concept of my lessons is to improve playing by learning songs -but you know that by now! - but there will be some theoretical content to the lessons too. WHAT WOULD BE CONTAINED IN EACH LESSON Each lesson would contain the following: 1) 2 songs a lesson – a song from each of the lists on my website (both the ‘rock’ list and the ‘soul’ list). I’ve got to film both of them so think of it as a little reward for being a beta tester! For each song I’ll do playalongs with 2 cameras so that I can focus on both left and right hands. Also I’ll isolate various sections and film say just a chorus, or just a verse. Anything extremely hard I’ll also film at half speed. For the early songs I’ll also do a detailed breakdown as in the lessons for EVERY BREATH, ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST, COME AS YOU ARE etc – but from approx lesson 10 onwards I will cut down on that as whilst it’s important to spoonfeed to get started, you’ll want to move onto solids at some stage. NOTE - I've just ordered an HD camera so the videos you'll get will be much higher quality than the YouTube ones you've seen. 2) All appropriate technical and theory needed for each lesson – I basically focus the early lessons on the songs, but slip in simple theory almost as an afterthought. Also the technical sections are similar to some of the lessons that are on YouTube but in much greater detail.
3)Full PDF documentation. A ‘side’ skill you’ll learn as the course progresses will be to read music. It’s not something we’ll focus on too much, just something that we’ll do. 4) Email and/or phone support (by Skype) 5) Action Plans for each lesson (eg suggested practice times). WHAT I EXPECT Firstly you have to have the desire to succeed. There will be times when it seems tough - we all have good weeks and crappy weeks. One of the most important qualities you need to posess to achieve the results we both want is 'stickability.' Secondly you need to have some hours free in your schedule for regular practice. I won't beat around the bush - if you don't practice you won't progress. And I'll know - see below! I think you need to be able to commit to 40 minutes or so a day for the first few lessons, and then work up to around 80/90 minutes a day by lesson 10. For 5 or 6 days a week. Week in. Week out. Rain or shine. Thirdly you need to be able to film yourself playing your bass. It would be easy of me to put a course like this together and just sell it on autopilot. However if you've heard me talk about the eBook I'm writing on practicing - called Deliberate Practice (due out at the end of March 09) you need to know that one of the fundamental tenets of Deliberate Practice is getting regular feedback on areas to improve. I want the people who take this course to succeed. Period. The only way you'll do that is if you're getting regular feedback so that any mistakes you're making can be identified and then corrected. I think it's pretty straightforward to post videos of your playing to YouTube but then make it private, and you can then 'invite' me to view them. Which is how I'll see your playing and be able to comment on it.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST The $1,000,000 question (not literally, don't freak out!). When I taught one-on-one I charged £35 a lesson - that used to be nearly $70 a lesson, now it's more like $50 I think (with the crappy state of the pound). I don't know how much private teachers charge where you live, but I'm guessing maybe $30-35 a lesson, and the good teachers are even more. I want to make these lessons affordable, so after lots of soul searching I've decided to charge $25 per lesson. That's right, if you forfeit a trip to the Cinema and a burger and drink at McDonalds afterwards that will probably pretty much pay for it. That includes everything - access to all the videos, and PDFs and for my time to look at your videos each lesson and provide feedback. $25 per lesson. That's it. For those of you who want to go ahead the payments will be taken by Paypal - maybe sometime down the line I'll be able to take credit card payments but I'm not guaranteeing that. If you don't have a Paypal account they're easy to set up. $25 Please remember that once the 'beta testing' phase is full these lessons won't be available until later in the year (probably September) when they'll be available to everyone. And they won't ever be this cheap again - or contain as much information. I'M IN - WHERE DO I SIGN UP? If you've decided you want to take part, email me and let me know and I'll email and let you know if you 'made the team.' Don't bother with the contact form, (use paulAThow-to-play-bass.com - replace AT with the usual @ symbol) I'M NOT SURE If you're not sure and you've got some questions, just email me and I'll answer them as honestly as I possibly can. As I said before if it's not for you it's not for you, only you can decide. Just do what your intuition tells you - your intuition is usually right! WHEN DOES ALL THIS START UP? I've got a couple of commitments that I'm burning the midnight oil to try and deal with - I estimate that they should be out of the way by the last week of January. So I'm looking for the first Lesson to be online on Thursday the 5th of February - thereafter if you're a weekly kind of a girl or guy the next lesson will be available the following thursday...and the following thursday. Etc etc.
Let me know what you think - I'm looking forward to it!
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