1-on-1 Bass Guitar Lessons

I am going to help you be the best bass player you can be!

I am so excited that you want to take lessons from me! These lessons are perfect for preparing you for a music school, starting a band, becoming a studio or for-hire musician, and building a personal brand online as a musician! Taking these lessons is an investment in your future and that makes me happy! Because you are following your dream to be a professional musician - just like I did :)
And let me tell you…. it is so worth it!

Bass Lessons are currently unavailable

One our first day together, you will receive a copy of these three books:

Josiah Garrett 102 Essential Phrases Slap Bass Book Cover

Slap Bass Encyclopedia

Trying to slap that bass? This book has every combination of slap and double thump phrase possible in Groups of 2, 3, & 4. This book will teach you how to perform every motion in slap and double thump technique - Slap, Pop, thump, double thump up & down, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and muted hits. Build unique slap bass patterns by stringing these phrases together, or practice them individually to improve your technical proficiency, speed, dexterity, and finger strength!

Josiah Garrett 15 Scales Bass Guitar Book Cover

15 Important Scales for Bass Guitar

How many of these 15 do you know? Not only does this book include scales, but it includes the different finger positions of each scale and the music theory explanation for why these scales are how they are. Major, Minor, Dominant, Dorian, Lydian, Phyrigian, Locrian, Half Diminished, Fully Diminished, Whole Tone,Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Altered Dominant, Phyrigian Dominant (Mixo b9 b13), Romanian (Dorian #4), Augmented, and Lydian Dominant.

2019 Music Industry Success

This book is a practical guide for navigating the music industry as an artist or band. This book is not in any sort of chronological order, its more of a “choose-your-own-adventure” book. Pick and choose whichever chapter you want and read at whatever pace you please. Each chapter is, for the most part, a standalone article on that topic. And each module features topics that are in a similar category. This book contains niche ideas as well as general knowledge, and is based off of my years of experiences in the Music Industry.

What you will learn in our lessons:

I addition to your learning materials, you and I will embark on a journey through the following features: Music Theory, Rhythm Theory, Ear Training, Slap and Double Thump, Groove and Pocket playing, Walking Bass Lines, Chord Progressions, Chords, Arpeggios, Scales, and Fretboard familiarity.

While I believe that a rounded approach to your bass playing will produce the best player, Each lesson will be tailored to whatever you are passionate about learning! If you have songs or passages of songs that you would like to learn - I will learn the songs and help as well as I can. There are no better teachers than the musicians before us!

Music Theory

Music Theory and technique is craft - not art. While it is not essential to creating beautiful music, a complete understanding of the theory of music will undoubtedly improve your art. Music Theory is a complicated, complicated mess of a subject. However, I have created a methodology that does not involve any sight reading or traditional notation to understanding the ENTIRE index of music theory: the study of WHY music theory works.

Essentially, I’m not going to give you a fish (traditional sight reading), I’m going to teach how to fish.

Rhythm Theory

As a bass player, we must operate in both worlds - Harmony and Rhythm. The bass is like the foundation of a house, you are the glue that holds the band together. Studying rhythm will help you reign in your flamboyant guitar player and lock in with your drummer.

Rhythmic Theory includes concepts like Phrasing, Strong Beat vs Weak Beat, “drunk” feel (septuplets), world rhythms, how to count in poly-rhythm (6/8 over 4/4), and how to communicate your rhythmic ideas to your band members.

Ear Training

Absolutely crucial - Your ability to listen determines how well you can lead! How are you gonna drive bus full of people if you can’t see the road? Together, I will teach you the most distinct factors in ear training to enable you to quickly determine chord progressions, melodies, and chord qualities (m7 vs Maj7).

Even better is that once you have developed ear training, you will be able to play what you hear - opening a new world of potential phrasings for your bass lines and solos.

Slap + Double Thump

I am the 3rd youngest published author in Mel Bay’s history - and I wrote that book on Slap and Double Thump technique. Its called the “Slap Bass Encyclopedia”. I was inspired to play bass by the likes of Flea, Mark King, John Ferrara, and Marcus Miller. I’ll teach you proper technique (so you don’t hurt yourself) for both Slap and Double Thump technique for consistency, accuracy, efficiency, and swagger!

Groove + Pocket Playing

The hallmark of a great bass player is that they make everyone else in the band sound better. Playing bass has humbled me as a musician - because it forced me to think more about the other band members than I thought about myself. The bass player is ultimately a support role - which makes us the most powerful and the most important. Your bass line has the power to change everything - groove, rhythm, key, chord… everything! And with this power comes responsibility.

I will teach you how to sit in the pocket and create a groove from scratch. Pocket playing and rhythmic theory are deeply intertwined and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Walking Bass Lines + Chord Progressions

If you are a bass player studying jazz, math rock, fusion, soul, progressive rock, or any form of music with complicated chord progressions, you must understand that you are the bridge that connects the chords in the progression. You build the bridge and every one else walks across. The better you can move around chord progressions, the more interesting and powerful your “bridges” will be.

Regardless of the genre of music, the progression of chords is basis for the musical story. When used properly, they invoke emotion and paint pictures. I will teach you the theory basics for movement around chord progressions and my conceptual process for “building these bridges”.

Chords + Arpeggios + Scales + Fretboard Familiarity

Chords, Arpeggios & Scales are all tools to help you understand the craft of music theory. These will not write songs by themselves, but they will help guide you when you reach uncertainty in your creative process. Studying these will improve your fret-board familiarity (what notes are where and why) and is something that any professional bass player has a complete mastery of.

Additionally, I will teach you the different hand positions for scales and arpeggios, which may have been just the change you needed to tackle that complicated riff or groove.

BYOS (Bring Your Own Song)

If you would like to bring your own song for me to learn and then teach, I would be more than happy to do so! The pursuit of specific pieces of music is the foundation for the hours required to build proper technique, finger strength, muscle memory, and fret-board familiarity. I can learn any genre of music - Pop, Metal, Funk, Hip Hop, Classical, Neo-Soul, Bluegrass, Afro-Funk, Progressive Rock, etc I love it all!