@Ran Levi Thanks for the vote of confidence! I would have been embarrassed to play the way I played in that video if I were up on a stage in front of a live audience. Embarrassed. But I wasn’t up on a stage. I was working in on developing skills I have known for many years that I needed to develop, but never knew how, and now I get learn and practice these skills with other like-minded bass players. But this is about much more than skills, knowledge and practice. It’s about what I would call “musical trust,” the idea that we exist in a safe space where we can learn how to communicate with our fellow musicians and with the audience with our instruments. In my musical past, my ability to communicate has been severely limited by my “paint-by-the-numbers” devotion to learning to play songs through tabulature. I struggled to create fills. If the band played a song faster than the tempo of the original recording, I struggled to adjust. What I came to realize is that I was applying a rubric that not even the bass players in the original bands who created the songs were following. They weren’t memorizing their walking basslines and fills and playing them the same way every time they got up on stage. They were improvising the whole time. The first song I practiced with a band was “Soulshine” by the Allman Brothers. I realized that their bass player, Allen Woody, was just recording one version of the way he had played this song. I realized this then, thirteen years ago, but didn’t know how to get to that place where he was. So thanks for helping me develop a kind of “musical trust” with all of you. I promise you that the next time I get up on a stage, it will be with this “musical trust” that you helped me develop. And equally, I want to be of whatever help I can in assisting you in developing that too.

You will. Due to a number of temporary personal issues, all of which have been resolved and are not worth enumerating, I have not been able to devote as much time as I would have liked to practicing. In addition, I spent a great deal of that limited time on the improvisation module because I needed the extra work there. It’s paying off in the intervals module. The main point for me is to learn and have fun at the same time, which I am doing.

I am more than willing to share videos of myself practicing. I would probably do this on request, as a result of someone seeing one of my homework videos and asking how I practiced.

@Russ Stevens The only other issue with five and six string basses. Some have longer necks, which add string tension to give faster vibration to the additional thicker strings. Others, especially five string basses, have the same neck length and string tension as four string basses, leading to the “floppy B” issue. I don’t have a lot of experience playing 5 or 6 string basses (mostly trying them out in musical instruments stores), but my general sense is that the benefits you mentioned far outweigh whatever the compromises might be in neck design. Like anything else, you practice enough to get used to the five or six string bass that you have, and then you look for ways to get the full benefit of the extra strings. I wish you the best of success with it.

@Ran Levi Thanks! String tension also comes up in other places, such as playing in “Drop D” on the E string. Just different ways to create deeper sounds. More fun stuff to play around with!