“Dear Paul

I’ll open with an apology that this reply will not easily split into distinct answers to the six questions you pose about the 30-day FunkSoul Bass course, however the obvious efforts you have gone to in the production and delivery of this exemplary course leads me to feel that it deserves more than short, compartmentalized replies. Also, the amount and of things I’d like to say goes well beyond answering these in that it has taught me so much about the process of teaching online that is so useful right now; I find it ironic that as a teacher my college has spent many thousands of pounds on CPD courses for us over the years when I’ve honestly gained more insight in six weeks from this, for nothing lets you focus on the key issues of online learning quite like being on the receiving end!

A bit of background to my own journey to taking this course, to clarify some points I’ve alluded to in Facebook posts. I’m not a musician at all; I teach physics, have a mainly sporting set of hobbies and background, I only started piano lessons a dozen years ago because my own children were starting them. I endured piano lessons for a couple of years, hated never being able to make it sound good, hated having to try to learn to read music alongside learning the instrument, hated learning scales (I’ve read your excellent comments about this since, of course), hated that it never focussed on being able to play along to any actual songs I liked. (Fortunately my son and daughter both got over these, and although they no longer study piano both have skill at, understanding and love of music). I’m sure that up to now my tale is typical of many adults who have tried an instrument post-childhood only to give up. Why mine subsequently differed is down to two fine colleagues:- our head of Music who, on ordering a class set of ukuleles instantly offered lessons to any staff to which a dozen of us started and three persevered, so for a few years we spent lunchtimes strumming the simplified chord versions of many songs that were proliferating online, at least making a noise that we found bearable; also to a newly-qualified recruit who’d previously run School-of-Rock type stuff at university who joined our uke group, watched me enjoying just keeping time with more talented soloist and said, “we’re going to form a band and you’re on bass guitar.” That was July 2016. Since then, what I’ve described variously as a hobby, pastime, bit of a laugh, personal challenge etc and my wife has described more correctly as an obsession, has kept away the dull times and prevented me doing anything silly like marking, getting promoted or taking life too seriously.

So I come to this course having learned (from YouTube, Ultimate Guitar tabs) the basslines to reasonable proficiency for  around 200 songs, having played with the band we formed at worked on over a dozen occasions to audiences large and small, having auditioned for and rehearsed with a fairly serious wedding/function band, playing regularly with many other friends. Since May last year I’ve been having fortnightly lessons with a local guitar/bass teacher, working mainly on hand position and technique to correct the many errors I’d built in whilst teaching myself, also on confidence in playing live which has led to me joining in regularly at Open Mic nights. I also tried my first online course last summer on groove development, which introduced me formally to ideas like eighths and sixteenths, triplets, off-beats, note lengths and finally explained what “swung-feel” was after I’d come across it dozens of times before!

All of the above is a rambling way of saying I’m probably not the typical student you ‘d expect on your course, and I did approach it with much trepidation, fearing that I would not be able to keep up. ( The pre-course material did help, but I spent most of the first five days wishing I’d spent at least a week on pre-course stuff first.) To answer your question #1, this fear that I did not know enough about musical jargon and would not be able to understand almost stopped me from clicking the Enrol button, and I’m afraid the list of extras thrown into the price may attract some people but for me only added to the “there’s loads I don’t understand and won’t be able to do” feeling. What over-rode these doubts, though, was that in my bass-playing I felt ready for much more than a beginners’ course, also that if nothing more it would be an overdue payment to you for the amount you had already taught me for free – Le Freak, Disco Inferno, Staying Alive to name but three, learned entirely from your YouTube tutorials, learned well enough to audition for and be taken on as dep bass player for a jobbing party band.

Having said the above, boy am I glad I did enrol. Among the things I’m learning because of this course are:

–          That it’s OK for me, yes me, to compose basslines

–          Polishing/adjusting/auditing these so they sound good to me is also a worthwhile act

–          Recognising the patterns in the basslines I know already, trying new devices in them to see how they sound

–          Understanding how to build these into a practise tool as well as to accompany a chord sequence

–          New techniques I’d never really mastered… mute and grace notes etc

–          Better use of tempo to build up fluency

–          Reading tab faster and better (and sometimes even reading the musical score to try to get the rhythm right)

–          Writing down my basslines  as tabs on paper at first, now using Musescore (before this course I had honestly never written any bassline of my own down in any way).

–          Developing the resilience to move past a bit I don’t understand or can’t play first time

–          Overall, gaining confidence in my worth as a musician.

Now, Lockdown started partway through this course and owing to work requirements the time and energy I had left for the course shrank so much I would describe myself still as at least ten days behind, and I probably want to spend the next month at least when I can going back over bits and try Day 21 onwards properly… I’ve read through and played along with them all but know there’s so much more still to do. Thought I’d best write this now though and give you some timely feedback. And as the list above shows, I’ve already learned more than I ever thought I could or would.

The vimeos you produce are brilliant and I couldn’t have got anywhere without them, not being able to read music well enough to play rhythms correctly from scores. Thanks also for the patience it takes to play through at slower tempo every time. Taking from this I’m developing two –tiered worked solutions to problems, with a more explicitly step-by-step version (i.e slower tempo) following our normal one… this could make a big difference for the less confident.

I’ve just read back through the points above and my over-riding message is please carry on doing what you do.

For my closing words have to be simply of thanks… even before this course you, and a select few others like you, have changed my life with your passion and generosity of spirit in sharing your knowledge of bass online for free. I hold up the provision of free online educational materials as one of the finest examples of what is good in humanity. Never stop, while you can still do this, please.

In this course in particular I feel new possibilities stretching away endlessly; before I was like a parrot, taught to repeat clever phrases with no understanding. Suddenly now I feel I might be able to speak for myself: not fluent yet, but introduced to the language in a way that I can understand. Thank you sincerely for this.”