Can You Learn How to Play the Bass Guitar Online?

For a bass beginner who wants to learn to play the bass guitar, there are 5 distinct advantages taking online lessons as opposed to the more traditional face-to-face approach.

The First Advantage: Learning Is Best Done By 'Layering.'

The brain learns best by breaking down information into manageable chunks, and then going over and over it. But you can't learn this way in traditional face-to-face lessons because you end up getting one big info dump. And some it you may remember, but some of it you may forget. And it's very difficult to assimilate it all.

With online lessons however you get your lessons in video format - so you can break down the lesson into manageable chunks and watch those portions over and over as needed, until the information is deeply soaked into your brain.

The Second Advantage: The Online Lesson Is The Same Quality Every Time

With face to face lessons the experience of the lesson can be badly affected by external factors. For example, your health or your instructor's health. Or the environment you're in - if it's summer and the AC has broken down, and your teacher has a small teaching room then your lesson won't be much fun.

But an online lesson is the same quality every time. And you can watch and learn from it in the comfort of your own home.

The third Advantage: The Split Between Teaching And Critiquing IS Clearly Defined

A great teacher knows that each lesson has two components: teaching and critiquing. And the two activities are separate disciplines. But in face to face lessons they can get muddled, which lessens the effectiveness of each of them.

But a good online system will have these two separate elements clearly defined. The teaching will be confined to the downloadable videos. And the critiques will occur with whatever critique system your online teacher uses.

The Fourth Advantage: A Better Use Of Time

Back in the day when I last had lessons, it used to take between 60 and 90 minutes EACH WAY to get to my lessons. Add in actual 60 minutes of the lesson and suddenly you're looking at a total investment of 3 hours plus for every lesson.

But with online lessons you can go through the material as and when you want. If you took that 3 hours travelling time I used to do and could instead add that to your practice time then you've come up with an additional 6 sessions of 30 minutes to practice. You can make a serious amount of progress in a year with just that time that you've freed up.

The Fifth Advantage: Cost

Good teachers charge good money. Maybe $40/50 per lesson and up, depending on where you live. And if you've got to travel to and from lessons as well then you've got the cost of gas to get there, plus the actual cost of the time you're in the car (opportunity cost). And that's every lesson.

By contrast, online lessons are generally cheaper and a far more effective use of your time.