The Simple Shift That Makes Any Bass Line Sound Sick

Join the Death of the 10,000-Hour Rule Patreon and get inside The Dojo: 👉   / membership   Most bass instruction teaches you how to play other people's music. Learn this line. Play this exercise. Copy this technique. Learn this scale. Repeat. And there's nothing wrong with learning from other players. But there's a problem. At some point, have to learn how to take what you've learned and actually say something of your own. That's why Compose is one of the three fundamental ways we work inside The Dojo: IMITATE → COMPOSE → IMPROVISE Most bass education is reductionist. It takes music apart into its component pieces: Technique. Scales. Arpeggios. Exercises. Theory. Drills. Then you're expected to spend hundreds of hours mastering those pieces so that someday, somehow, they'll turn into music. But there's another way. Instead of taking music apart... we use music to put you together. You start with the music you actually want to play. You find something you can't do. That's what you work on. You need better muting? Great. Let's find a musical situation where you need better muting. You need more speed? Let's find something you actually want to play faster. You need to understand harmony? Let's use the song you're playing to teach you the theory you need right now. That's Holistic Practice. And it's the philosophy behind The Dojo. One of the biggest problems with traditional instruction is that you're constantly being asked to learn things because your teacher thinks you might need them someday. Here's a scale. Here's an exercise. Here's a chord substitution. "You'll need this eventually." But what if we flipped that around? What if you played the music first... And learned what you needed when you actually needed it? That's just-in-time learning. Instead of cramming your head full of information and hoping you'll eventually find a use for it, you encounter a musical problem... And then you learn the thing that solves it. The Dojo is a training environment built around real music. You choose the music you actually love playing. Funk. Fusion. Rock. Metal. Jazz. Whatever gets you to pick up the bass. And instead of playing along with a backing track that was designed as an educational exercise, you're working with real recordings with the original bass removed. Then you run that music through the framework: 1. IMITATE Learn the parts that make the song what it is. The iconic bass lines. The grooves. The fills. The little details that make the recording sound like that recording. 2. COMPOSE Now make something of your own. Change the rhythm. Write a fill. Create a different bass line. Try a technique you've been struggling with. Respond to what the other musicians are doing. You're no longer just reproducing music. You're making it. 3. IMPROVISE Now throw away the script. Listen. React. Take chances. Make decisions in real time. That's where the stuff you've learned starts becoming yours. And then there's one more critically important part: RECORD. You don't get to hide behind the practice room. You record yourself playing the entire song in a single take. Then you listen back. Because the recording doesn't care how much you practiced. It tells you what you actually sound like. And that's where we find the next thing to work on. And every song becomes another opportunity to get better. BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO FIGURE IT ALL OUT YOURSELF. This is where the different levels of The Dojo come in. LEVEL 1 — THE TRAINING ENVIRONMENT You get access to The Dojo and the growing library of real music playthroughs, tabs, and notation with the bass removed (mp3, mp4, XML). You choose what you want to play. You work through the framework. Imitate. Compose. Improvise. Record. Analyze. You can do the whole thing yourself. LEVEL 2 — PERSONAL FEEDBACK This is where I become your instructor. You send me the recording. And instead of giving you another generic list of things you should practice, I listen to what you're actually doing. Maybe your technique is holding you back. Maybe your timing is the problem. Maybe you're missing something in the harmony. Maybe you're practicing the wrong thing entirely. We'll find it. Then I'll tell you what I think you should work on next. LEVEL 3 — PRIVATE COACHING And if you want to work with me face-to-face, Level 3 includes a private Zoom coaching session with me every month. We can dig into your playing, your technique, your musical goals, your recordings... So if you want to play music instead of endlessly preparing to play music... Come into The Dojo. Not another 10,000 hours of grinding. The smart way to get good. Join the Death of the 10,000-Hour Rule Patreon and get inside The Dojo: 👉   / membership   Bring your bass. And let's see what you can do with it.