The only online learning platform for bassists that gives you curated, step-by-step instruction.
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The only online learning platform for bassists that gives you curated, step-by-step instruction.
Start My Free Trial
After following Players Path, I feel my bass playing bursting to new standards!
Jess from Denmark
Join more than 70,000 bassists who are having more fun playing bass than they ever thought possible.
Some people say there has never been a better time to learn the bass. Because no matter what skill you want to learn, you can find hundreds — if not thousands — of free lessons on YouTube. And you can also pay for countless online courses covering every topic about the bass imaginable.
But books, online courses and YouTube do NOT give you a holistic, step-by-step path to becoming a better bassist. And that means trying to learn the bass by playing “YouTube Roulette” will only leave you frustrated.
Because if you don’t know what to focus on right now (for the specific level you’re at) to become a better bassist, you wind up like a dog chasing its tail…
Where instead of moving forward, you just run around in circles — following whatever shiny tactic gets your attention each week… some new video on YouTube… a new lick from Instagram. But still, you’re completely stuck in a rut. You know exactly what I’m talking about ;)
Even worse, when you try to learn more advanced bass techniques with big holes in your foundation, you often just fall flat on your face.
Which is why the fastest way to improve your bass skills is to use a step-by-step program — customized based on your skill level. That way, you can focus all of your efforts to master the few techniques that will give you the most progress in the least amount of time. And then once you’ve nailed those, you can move up a level to the next set of skills.
Because private lessons and music school are the only places where an instructor will assess your current skill level. Then they will assign you specific lessons to master a few skills that will help you make the most progress. And once you’ve mastered those skills, your instructor will then assign you another set of more-challenging lessons to continue your progress.
But I started to wonder…
Using my decades of experience teaching and playing bass, and helping over 70,000 bass players level up their playing using SBL, I began looking for a solution.
I started by analyzing the path my most successful students followed to quickly become excellent bass players. From there, I figured out the most important skills they had at each level of their development. As well as the most efficient lessons to teach those skills. Then I finished by creating tests to determine when someone is ready to start each level.
We realized bass players needed an ONLINE system that gives them the same curation, direction, and accountability as private lessons.
So we decided to build one.
What we ended up with was a step-by-step path that any student could follow that would take them from almost-complete-beginner, to seriously-advanced, all in nine levels.
Introducing
The only step-by-step performance based online learning platform for bassists that can take you from total beginner to pro-level.
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The biggest thing I did to improve my bass playing was join SBL.
Randy from Norwalk, OH
Players Path gives you 3 key elements you can’t get from books, Online courses or YouTube lessons.
01
Players Path starts by giving you a realistic (and judgement-free) score using the special in-built testing tool to help identify exactly where your bass playing stands today.
It doesn’t matter if it’s your first time picking up a bass or you’re a professional making a living with your playing, it’s critical to know exactly where you are right now as a bassist, so you know specifically what you should be focusing on next to up-level your bass playing.
No other bass program starts by figuring out your current skill level — so that it can then assign you the appropriate lessons.
02
Once Players Path determines your skill level, the program will give you lessons to master the most important bass techniques for your specific level.
That way, you can stay laser-focused on the skills that will give you the most progress in the least amount of time. And you’ll also know what you can safely ignore for now — so you don’t get overwhelmed or burn yourself out by taking on too much at once. (What a relief!)
03
Players Path is a holistic, step-by-step system. So each time you “graduate” from one level, you unlock a whole new set of lessons for the next level up, with each level including hours and hours of world-class step-by-step video instruction.
And from there, you can keep developing your bass skills at a blazing pace, all the way up to pro-level skills. (Even I have trouble with the exercises at Level 9!)
I have tried books, DVD’s, YouTube, and nothing has helped me like this site. It really feels like Scott is my personal bass tutor!
SBL User Glitchstep
You’ve never held a bass before in your life.
You “started late” and didn’t pick up a bass until you were an adult.
Without investing thousands of dollars on private lessons — or even more on a music degree.
Without spending hundreds on disconnected, one-off online courses.
And without wasting hours of precious time getting spun around in circles by the YouTube algorithm.
Heyo! I’m Scott Devine, founder of ScottsBassLessons. I started playing bass professionally in my early 20s. And I’ve had the honor of recording and touring around the world.
My biggest claim to fame is as a bass instructor. Through a combination of mentorship and my own analytical personality, I discovered some unusual shortcuts that speed up the learning process.
In 2010 I started a YouTube channel to share these shortcuts with the world. Now more than a million people follow my bass lessons online and SBL has become the leader in online bass tuition.
Players Path is the latest game-changing innovation from myself and the team here at SBL.
Players Path comes loaded with tons of high quality video, audio, and skill-evaluation tools.
In total, Players Path features over 60 hours of in-depth video tutorials with me. So I’m basically your personal bass teacher whilst you’re progressing through each of the levels.
Players Path contains hundreds of lessons specifically curated to the difficulty level, and allows you to check off each lesson as you complete it, so you’ll always know how far you’ve come.
The best way to learn is by doing. That’s why the core of players path is the performance projects - between 7 and 10 original songs to work your way through in each level.
Players Path doesn’t leave you in the dark about whether or not to advance a level, but gives you specific self evaluation questions to give you an accurate picture of where you’re at.
If you’d rather study something offline, or even read it from a printed page, Players Path gives you downloadable workbooks for every written exercise.
My bass playing is improving in leaps and bounds. You guys have enabled me to fall in love with this amazing instrument.
Ian from Kyiv, Ukraine
In the first level, you’ll discover the most foundational skills for playing the bass, like fundamental playing techniques, time signatures, note length, and basic muting.
For the second level you'll learn all about fretting hand fingering, basic harmony, staccato notes, and different types of rest notes.
Here you’ll discover new keys — including E major, A major, and F major — as well as how to use accents, accidentals, fermata symbols, and basic fingerboard movement.
In this level, you’ll find out about shuffle and swing feel, slides, dotted notes, slap and pop technique, and more. Plus you’ll also begin to focus more heavily on reading music notation.
Here we’ll begin looking at how to play melodies as a bassist. Plus we’ll also cover swung sixteenth notes, tied notes, and syncopated rhythms.
In this level we begin to work on walking bass lines. Plus you’ll also master the mixolydian and minor pentatonic scales, begin finding out about common jazz harmony, and continue developing your fretting hand finger positions.
Here you’ll start learning how to improvise and write bass solos. And the songs will challenge you with odd time signatures, fast tempos, harmonics, and more.
In this level, you’ll be challenged to sight read tabs and notation. Plus you’ll also push your playing to the extremes of syncopated rhythms, wide-intervalic lines, chordal parts, soloing over static minor chords and two dominant chords, plus much more.
This level will seriously put all your skills to the test. You’ll take on playing bebop-style melodies, soloing over fast non-diatonic chord sequences, switching between fingerstyle and slap lines, alternating between different time signatures, and more.
This platform is better than every single school/teacher I’ve had in my entire life-time as a musician (and it has been 17 years so far!)
Nick from Italy
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100+ COURSES
From the best bass players on the planet
Adam Neely
Adam Nolly Getgood
Andrew Gouche
Bobby Vega
Danny Mo Morris
Felix Pastorious
Gary Willis
Phil Mann
Sean Hurley
Steve Lawson
And many more!
A step-by-step progression platform that will guide you from absolute beginner all the way up to pro-level.
No matter your skill level, your goals and interests, you’ll find the guidance you need with hundreds of in-depth courses in an easy to use library.
Learn from a team of world-class instructors that you won’t find anywhere else, including Gary Willis, Sean Hurley, Rufus Philpot, Steve Jenkins, and Rich Brown.
Live seminars are held every week with Scott Devine and many of our world-class instructors, where you’ll be able to ask your questions and hang out with your fellow students.
Hours of interviews and candid conversation with your favorite bass players from Hendrik Linder, Jonathan Maron and Adam Neely to Verdine White and even Billy Sheehan.
Whether you need constructive feedback or a friendly push, our members support each other’s journey and feel a sense of belonging over a shared love of the bass.
Challenges are held throughout the year to help make you a better bass player. Our whole community gets involved, really making it a fun and social learning environment.
White-glove support from our dedicated student-success team. Whatever you need, our team is there to help. No question is too big — or too small.
Members-only discounts for ALL of our events and extended programs. Occasionally, we offer events and courses that are too big to fit inside the SBL Membership. But whenever that happens, we make sure our members get the lowest price available to thank them for their ongoing support.
Exclusive deals with dozens of bass gear and accessory manufacturers. If you spend more than a few hundred dollars a year on strings, upkeep, and other bass gear, these discounts alone will pay for your membership.
And much more...
STUDENT FEEDBACK
Here’s what just a few of them have had to say about their exprience of SBL:
SBL Membership is backed by my 30-day guarantee – If you’re not happy then simply email us and we’ll issue you a full refund.
No! Players Path is part of the SBL Membership. If you’re already a member, you’ll get it automatically. (Though now’s an amazing time to upgrade to an annual membership and save $50-a-year for life.)
If you’re not already a member, you can try it for FREE for 14 days, and still get $50 off our annual membership when you make your first payment.
Players Path has 9 levels. The first is accessible to beginners, and the last gave *me* trouble to play.
We believe if you successfully complete all 9 levels, you’ll undergo a transformation in your bass playing.
There are self-assessments, so you can determine your level and skip right to the level that’s most helpful to you.
You do not have to use Players Path. You can take any course you want, and utilize any of the other amazing features of the Membership, from the campus to the Bass Hangs.
You’ve got 30 days to get your money back, no-questions-asked.