Learn Bass

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Hi

I am 43 just found out I am an aspie last year.

I love the bass, I have a good ear and wicked rhythm.
I attempted bass lessons, but I learn visually and the teacher rushed from one topic to another, so I gave it away.
Reading music is something I have tried since I was a kid and I just can not get my head around it.

Anyone have any ideas how I can learn the Bass?
Or things I can suggest to the local teacher to educate him on how to deal with an apsie?

Ideas please.

What exactly is the problem you have with reading music?

Hi

Everything!

I have tried to understand it, since I was a kid.
Piano, trumpet, trombone, guitar.

I find it all very confusing, I have trouble remembering all the symbols and meanings.
Sorry I can not be more helpful

The basic notation system is very logical though.
Notes go up on the staff; pitch goes up.
Notes go down, pitch goes down.
The best way is to remember one or 2 notes and calculate from there until you memorise more.
Once you get past quarter notes/crotchets, rhythm is just as logical. Adding another flag to the note stem means the time value is halved.
Maybe you tried to memorise too much at once? Or maybe you didn't go about it systematically enough? Those are the most common problems I see in my adult students who've had trouble reading music in the past (and who can all read music now).

Do you have the same trouble with reading text? I've always found it hard to get my head around the fact that so many people can read the 26-letter alphabet fluently, but have so much trouble with music.

On reflection I think I was going too fast.

My teacher has never had an aspie student before and found I could not keep up.
Thinking I had no talent, I quit some months ago in frustration.

At that time not understanding the issues at play.

On reflection of your thoughts, yea I think we went to fast.
I need to slow down and fully grasp one concept before moving on.

I also need to gently educate him on how to teach me.
I really do want to get the hang of bass, its such a cool instrument.

I do find absorbing new concepts when I don't have a frame of reference very challenging indeed.

Thanks

I can't really read music to well, it takes too much time for me to translate the notes into what I am supposed to do, so I can never keep up...I could follow music but it would take forever. I'd probably have to re-write the music in letter form since its a little easier and then very slowly get it down and maybe be able to speed it up. I find bass tabs easier to read than music, for some reason having everything numbered is easier to understand that might be worth a try.

I have two basses and a bass amp but I certainly have not gotten very far on that, I can kind of play a couple parts of a couple songs but not really sure how to really learn to play it at all. I still kind of want to and I was thinking of trading one bass in for a regular guitar...but I assume guitar would be even harder than bass.

^^^ I'll second the suggestion on TABs.

I can't read music, but I picked up TABS for guitar really quickly.

I'm a strong supporter of the TAB system as an alternative to the standard notation because that's how I learned the guitar. The timing on TABs is left up to the interpreter but makes for rapid no nonsense learning

There are several mnemonic devices for learning what line or space on what staff represents what note. For example the spaces on the treble staff (the clef circles the 2nd line from the bottom) spell the word FACE.

A releated thread from a month or so ago.