Tom Kenrick - online bass lessons / teacher

[Jolltax]

I wanted to post a personal recommendation here for Tom Kenrick as bass teacher, a post to people (like me) who are looking for someone to help them improve their bass playing, technique and musical knowledge.

 

I found Tom through recommendations on this forum and through his website whilst searching for bass transcriptions online.  I have been taking Zoom lessons with Tom for about 10 months now, other than that I have no association with him at all and have never actually met him in person so I am writing this review entirely from the perspective of being one of his students on Zoom, I am biased though - because I think he is an excellent teacher!

In addition to being a working professional musician in the UK, he also teaches, is an author of several books on bass and a Music Academy graduate.  Tom is also the owner FreeBassTranscriptions website where he has published many articles and also runs a YouTube channel where you can read his bio or look at the uploads, teaching videos, reviews and lessons!

 

Check out his playing on his Youtube channel, here is one of my favourites :

 

 

Tom is a great guy and ultra-professional in his approach to his teaching, has a high quality video-audio setup which he uses to provide lessons, he is very disciplined about documenting our lessons, he always sends me a written plan and objectives following up on lessons and when I send him recordings he always comes to the lesson having listened to them and with comments.  My initial reservations about learning over Zoom are gone completely, it works great! 

 

Tom is extremely patient (I am 56 years old and have been playing for just over year), he is very flexible and understanding of my other commitments (I have a rather demanding job which means I have a very unpredictable schedule). In lessons I can see he is very focused on making the best use of our time.  One of the qualities I most value from him is that he is careful to point out my mistakes and give me the guidance I need but is always motivating and positive about it, I always leave the lessons feeling energised and encouraged, never demotivated.

 

Oh, and he's good at bass, obviously ...... 😀

 

If you are looking for a teacher and want to talk to Tom about it - he does free consultations, have a chat with him - I can guarantee you will be impressed.  If you are interested in more feedback from me on his lessons then feel free to send me a PM

 

J

[stewblack]

Tom doesn't like people to gush about him and his brilliant teaching which makes it difficult to write an honest review of his lessons. Because the desire to gush is almost overwhelming.

I came to Tom as a bass player with many years of experience across many genres and at many levels. In other words I had decades of bad habits and inadequate knowledge ingrained in me. You'd never have imagined what an uphill task he faced in attempting to undo all this, because his manner was always cheerful, open and friendly. He appeared to actually enjoy trying to educate this very old dog.

I'm now entering my fifth block of lessons (six lessons per block) and the transformation in my understanding of my instrument, my style of play and my ability to read and write music is little short of miraculous. Tom understands what makes me tick as a person and communicates with such precision, humility and skill that he makes the learning fun and the progression seamless.

Don't come to him for a quick fix or to learn shortcuts. The Kendrick Method is all about the steady drip feed of knowledge which builds inexorably to a lasting improvement in all aspects of playing the bass. I cannot recommend him highly enough.

[alexb]

I had bass lessons with Tom via Zoom for about 1.5 years and mirroring the comments above, he is a brilliant teacher. 

 

I was 29 when I started getting lessons with Tom, and had been playing bass since I was 13. I have played in semi-professional level wedding bands and originals bands, so I would say my playing is at a reasonably high level when compared to the general population of bass players, although nowhere near the level of a professional session bassist. 

 

It really is difficult to fault Toms teaching in any way -- he was extremely professional and friendly in our lessons, he had a great audio/video setup, he prepared and shared .pdf files for the lessons with personalised content on whatever i was working on at the time, and also made notes after the lesson so I would know what I should work on in between. He was also very responsive to any questions or emails I sent him between our lessons, and flexible to moving lessons when I needed to. 

 

One of my favourite things about the lessons was that I felt like I had complete control over the direction we went in. Because Tom is so knowledgeable about all areas of bass/music theory/music as-a-whole I could essentially discuss any songs i'd been listening to (or just anything music-related thing I had been thinking about), and without any preparation, Tom would have something informative to say about it, or make tailored exercises so that I could practise and improve in the areas I had been thinking about. If I was interested in a particular bass solo, he would often go away and listen to it and learn it himself, and then breakdown the various concepts and techniques for me at the next lesson and have a plan on how I could get these techniques in my own playing. This was way beyond anything I'd reasonably expect from a teacher, and is testament to his passion for bass and teaching. 

 

Most of all, Tom is just an extremely friendly and humble guy. I think musically we had very similar tastes and interests, and I really enjoyed just chatting with him and nerding out about music/bass. Unfortunately with work/band/family commitments my practise dwindled, which meant despite Tom's best efforts I wasn't making the most of the lessons I had with him. However, I think for anyone with the motivation and commitment to bass, Tom's lessons could really help in getting to a much higher level of bass playing, and I cannot recommed him highly enough. 

Edited August 1, 2023 by alexb