I think I've mentioned that I've redirected my in-person lessons to working on bass stuff? If not, well, I have.
Last night was my third lesson and the best one yet. I started with, I just played out doing this and this song, here's where I think I was struggling, and I have a blues jam in October. So, now what?
We ended up doing a lot of "gasp" theory—applied theory—and when I got home last night I realized I now know where all five boxes of the minor pentatonic go. Not well enough to rip through them at top speed without thinking, but I now can pluck them out and, if I'm working on a little riff around a target note, it doesn't take me but a couple of seconds to find the appropriate notes around it that fit the pentatonic.
In the lesson that opened up a raft of new vision for me, like blinders falling off. I'm excited to just pick target notes and sidle up to and around them ad hoc for a while, sorta stretch my wings a little. Then I'll start trying to string some stuff together to fit a chord progression or three.
Fun!