Teaching a complete beginner

[JohnSlade07]

I'm starting to teach bass to a 14 yr old lad who's a complete beginner. It's a favour for a friend so should be fairly relaxed. Just wondering what you think I should try and cover in the lessons? It's trying to strike a balance between songs, theory, technique etc I suppose. Obviously I've also got to keep a 14 yr old motivated and interested. Any tips and ideas greatly appreciated therefore.

Cheers.

[maxrossell]

From experience, remember to keep a good balance between theory/technique and playing for fun. I always tried to get people to show me what sort of records they were into so I could use that material to teach them, and that way they'd always be into practicing (with beginners, especially younger ones, the major ballache is always that they often "forget" to practice between lessons).

[cytania]

You want to look through what they want to play and find a simply root noter. This should give them an early idea of 'I can do it'. The other thing is to show them breaking a song down section by section, figuring things out. Bassists aren't spoilt for tab so being able to take stuff apart and fake a bit is part of the skill. Finally if you've got any drum loops/machine/PCM metronome show them how to work along to drums without melody concerns, just grooving.

[51m0n]

Really important you get the most basic bits down first.

Strap length, left hand (not squeezing to hard) right hand not plucking to hard, no hard break angles on wrists.

Check their bass over - high action is a bad thing for a 14 yr old beginner, sort it out if necessary (and you can).

Great starting riff is Hey Joe - first the roots then the little walking lick. Its trivially easy and will in 10 mins make them feel like they can play a classic song.

[JohnSlade07]

Great advice and ideas guys. Keep it coming.

Thanks

[leschirons]

[quote name='51m0n' post='479807' date='May 5 2009, 11:29 AM']Really important you get the most basic bits down first.

Strap length, left hand (not squeezing to hard) right hand not plucking to hard, no hard break angles on wrists.

Check their bass over - high action is a bad thing for a 14 yr old beginner, sort it out if necessary (and you can).

Great starting riff is Hey Joe - first the roots then the little walking lick. Its trivially easy and will in 10 mins make them feel like they can play a classic song.[/quote]

This is really sound advice. I would just add that in this situation I would also get them into the easiest song that they would actually like to play. I gave a local young girl some guitar lessons a couple of years ago and her choices were all bands like Dragonforce so I was on a loser. Luckily, she was also into Greenday so we started with Basket case. It's all a matter of holding their interest and being able to achieve something no matter how simple although you'll know how keen they are when you get to lesson No2 when you see if they've practiced or not.

[51m0n]

[quote name='leschirons' post='480128' date='May 5 2009, 05:25 PM']This is really sound advice. I would just add that in this situation I would also get them into the easiest song that they would actually like to play. I gave a local young girl some guitar lessons a couple of years ago and her choices were all bands like Dragonforce so I was on a loser. Luckily, she was also into Greenday so we started with Basket case. It's all a matter of holding their interest and being able to achieve something no matter how simple although [b]you'll know how keen they are when you get to lesson No2 when you see if they've practiced or not[/b].[/quote]

+1 and tp be honest if you are really lucky 5 out of 10 will have, and after 6 months 1/10 will still put the work in.

Having said that, that 1 can make the rest worth while. I've been lucky enough to so far have 2 students out of I don't know how many who really wanted to put the work in, and they just improved so fast it was amazing. The rest of the time people improve at a much slower speed, and sometimes they never do.

I once had a student for 2 years, she swore she practiced, yet she never improved at all. I told her mum (quietly and privately) that I didn't think bass was really the right thing for her (after 3 months) and her mum just said that she "enjoys the lessons" must be my animal magnetism, cos it wasn't bass playing!!