My Bass Coaching is for adults looking to start their journey to becoming Bass Players and those who can already play and want to tune up or improve an aspect of their playing.

I love working with people who are passionate about learning and ready to dig in and have fun and find their musical voice.

You will definitely need your own Bass for our sessions and to practice and explore the things we discuss in your own time and for in person lessons, it would be very useful to have an amp of your own.

I would recommend getting an external interface for your computer and playing along on headphones. There are plenty of options out there and they convenience (and quiet) it offers to you and to your neighbours can't be overstated. 

When learning an instrument it's essential to have access to one in your own time, to have one in your space that you can pick up and play whenever the mood takes you. 

You need to be as "hands on" with it as often as possible so you get used to how it feels, how it sits or hangs on you, how to make it make sounds. As a musician, you're taking ideas and sounds you hear in your head and making them real via your hands and the instrument so it has to become an extension of you at a physical level...

I can't supply you with equipment but I can help you to select and buy what you need. I may recommend equipment and, full disclosure, they may be affiliate links which won't cost you any extra as it will be the supplier who slips me a few bucks for point you to them. 

Obviously, there's no pressure to buy anything I may suggest and you can defo find any of those things yourself minus my affiliate commission if you wish 👍🏽

That's totally fine 👍🏽

When we have our free introductory chat we can figure that out together. We'll talk about your favorite music and artists, and explore different styles to discover what excites you most.

As a little thought exercise to help you: imagine that it's Christmas and you work in retail for 8 hours a day and have to listen to relentless Christmas music. When you leave work and get home, what music/which artist are you putting on to reset yourself and get all that relentless festive music out of your head? 

That can give you a rough idea of the music that lives rent free in your soul...

There's no real hard and fast answer to this. 

I would suggest a plan or pattern of as often as you can and as consistently as you can. 

If anything, consistency is more important than duration. I'd suggest 30-60 mins 4 or 5 times a week if you can, going over the basic stuff and the things we cover together in our sessions and then playing around on thing you want to explore. 

Any time you have spare after that or in the week, feel free to grab that Bass and start playing! I'll never tell you to NOT play it...  

Things to consider though: don't overplay!

It can be tempting to start practising and keep going and going and going and at the end of it your hands hurt (you may have even drawn blood or created blisters), your forearms hurt, your back hurts, your ears are ringing and you're exhausted. 

There are no 🏆's for the most injuries acquired in the process of learning!

Just play to learn, play for fun and stop when things start to cramp up or feel like you're "working" to get results that you should be able to achieve easily. 

How long is a piece of string? "Getting good" is a journey, and success looks different for everyone.

My main goal as your Coach is to get you to a point where you feel confident and excited about your playing, to a point and a level where you can hold your own in a jam session or an audition for a band, play along to your favourite songs, maybe even write your own lines to them and you can confidently learn songs by ear or with the tab/scores.

Based on our chat, we'll set specific, achievable goals for where you want to be in six months time and we'll review them when we get there; hopefully that will give you a clear sense of progress and accomplishment.

I offer both online and in-person lessons from here in Vancouver. Obviously, if you live outside of Vancouver, it's going to be online... 

If you live in a different country or time zone then it's definitely online! And time differences will have to be taken into account so that our clocks overlap. 

For the online lessons, having an external interface is essential so I can hear you play and talk in Zoom 👍🏽. In person, having an Amp to play through is more use. 

After our free 30 minute introductory chat, if you're happy to go ahead, I'll send you a link to my online scheduling calendar where you can see when I'm available and book your session by duration.

No, you definitely don't need one.

In my personal opinion it's better to learn on a 4 String Bass; there's less of it to navigate and learn and you can (and likely will) play most things on a 4 String any way. 

I use a 5 because I also transcribe and so the added notes on the low B String help. Plus I'm quite big and find the 5 String more comfortable to play in hand. 

For things we'll be covering and learning I won't ever be playing the B string (I'll mainly be using it as a thumb rest) so you can safely ignore it. Just pretend it's not there...