Learn Bass online with Ari

Dear Reader My marketing team reviewed my Starting Point Quiz this week. Their feedback? “It’s too academic.”“Lead with pain points.”“Make it lighter.” They’re not wrong. I could write you a quiz about: your frustration with tabs your YouTube rabbit holes that feeling of “I know the notes… but I can’t make it groove” You’ve seen that quiz before. But here’s the issue: That kind of quiz quietly suggests your frustration can be fixed without dealing with the underlying skills. And that’s the...

Notes to Self (and Bassists) Dear Reader Got a one-star Amazon for the Pattern System Book. The complaint: I warn against using short-scale basses in the Pattern System book. The reviewer read that as snobbery toward shorties. I get why it landed that way. But here's what I actually said, and why it matters. The Pattern System asks you to do several things simultaneously: say note names, identify intervals, hear scale degrees, visualize the fretboard without looking at it, and let your...

Dear Reader, Here’s something I keep having to relearn: When practice isn’t working, the answer is rarely “more hours.”It’s usually less chaos. I see this all the time in live sessions. Someone wants to fix timing, improve tone, understand the changes, clean up technique, and learn a song… all in one sitting. That’s not ambition. That’s cognitive overload. And the weird part is, overload feels productive. Lots of motion. Lots of effort.But it doesn’t create traction. It creates fog. So here’s...

Dear Reader Let me walk you through week one of our cohorts. First, we start with a kickoff meeting. You’ll meet your coach, see how everything works, where to post your assignments, and how the cohort runs. Then you begin Unit 1. Rhythm Matrix — Week 1 You’ll start with the foundations of rhythm and learn Ari’s 16 Rhythm Matrix patterns - the building blocks of groove. You won’t count. You’ll use words like“weedwacker,” “butterfly,” “movie” instead of 1-e-and-a. Because words put rhythm in...

Notes to Self (and Bassists) Dear Reader The “Weird Stuff” In our courses, you’ll be asked to chant words, scat a solo, move your body, feel upbeats and downbeats in specific ways. You’ll practice without touching the bass.Visualize shapes. Hear lines internally. Feel subdivisions inside the click. Straight and shuffled. We’ll talk about emotions in ear training, from “love-song-stuff” to “murderer-about-to-come-round-the-corner”- sounds.We’ll make you drop your hand mid-phrase.We’ll name...

DearReader I just got back from a tour with Raj Ramayya and Akira Yamaoka. Eight shows in seven cities, literally from New York (Irving Plaza) to Los Angeles (The Belasco). Flights, vans, sold-out venues, photos with fans. The whole rock star treatment. One thing that surprised me was the audience. Several people told us it was their first concert ever. Fans of Cowboy Bebop, Silent Hill, and Ghost in the Shell hearing the soundtrack of their youth played live in front of them for the first...

Notes to Self (and Bassists) Dear Reader We had an ice storm recently and our area was hit hard with power outages. No heat or lights. Below zero Celsius outside. And on day 4 of this I had Live Practice w/ Ari on the calendar. So I did what any reasonable adult would do. I bundled up like I was going ice fishing, turned on my backup batteries, tethered my laptop to my phone, and taught the class from the kitchen table. It was ridiculous. And perfect. There is something clarifying about...