How to How Long Will It Take Me To Learn Bass

I recently was asked: “How long will it take me to learn how to play bass?” Depends on a few major factors: 1) How much previous experience do you have with music? 2) How much experience do you have with eye-hand coordination and motor skills? 3) How much time are you willing to put into it? 4) …your learning rate.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Bass
• A teacher to teach you basic technique
• Songs that you want to learn
• Drive to consistently practice

1. If you’ve had previous experience with music, you’re better off. If you know some stuff about music theory (Chords, Scales, Notes), then you’re even more better off. If you’ve previously played guitar, then it’s a really easy transition.
2. The better your eye-hand coordination and motor skills, the better off you are playing an instrument.
3. If you put in 10 minutes of practice per week, it’s going to be a long time (perhaps up to 6 months) before you reach performance level. If you put a consistent 25 minutes of practice in per day, I’d guess and say it’ll take you 1-3 months to get to a level where you can get by in a performance (it all depends on your predispositions).
4. I’ve seen brighter people click with music faster than people who aren’t as bright.

Tips & Warnings

• Find a teacher to first learn basic technique. Teaching yourself from the start will more than likely lead to the development of bad playing habits, which will frustrate your efforts in the future.
• Bass is one of the few instruments that can literally cause you to injure yourself. Pace yourself, don’t go practicing 2 hours a day out of the cuts - that’ll be a quick path to tendinitis and other repetitive motion injuries.
• Play only until you feel tired, and if it hurts to play - STOP!