Learn bass guitar to holding down real songs in four months
Four months of daily practice — about 20 to 30 minutes a day on a single free, sequenced course — gets a determined adult playing real basslines in time, locked to the drums. Roughly 60 hours total. Bass is the most forgiving instrument to start and the hardest to do well; this gets you to "useful in a band" faster than any other instrument can.
4 months · ~60 hours · play 10 songs all the way through, in time, by ear and tab
1.StudyBass — the free course, start to finish
Andrew Pouska has run StudyBass since 2003, and it is the settled answer for learning bass alone. It is a real curriculum, not a pile of videos: lessons go in order, build on each other, and come with interactive exercises and a metronome built into the page. You learn to read rhythm, find notes on the neck, and play scale and chord-tone lines that actually appear in songs. Start at Lesson 1 and do every exercise. Do not jump to slap or theory you have not earned yet.
Free (private Zoom lessons with Pouska are available if you want them, but the course is complete on its own)
StudyBass →2.A real bass and a small amp
Buy a Squier Affinity Precision Bass PJ — the P pickup gives you the classic thick tone, the J pickup adds bite, and one bass covers nearly every style you will want. Pair it with a Fender Rumble 25, a 25-watt combo that is plenty loud for a bedroom and small enough to leave out. Pay a shop ~$40 to set it up: low action means your fretting hand stops hurting, which is the number-one reason beginners quit. Add a clip-on tuner and a cable, nothing else.
~$230 bass + ~$150 amp + ~$40 setup + ~$20 tuner and cable
Squier Affinity P Bass PJ →3.Play along to real songs
Bass is a team sport — you cannot learn its real job (locking to a drummer) by playing alone. Once you have the first few StudyBass lessons down, put on a recording and play with it. "Billie Jean", "Come Together", "Another One Bites the Dust", "Seven Nation Army" — these are simple, iconic, and teach you to hold a groove. Use Songsterr for accurate, scrolling tab synced to playback, and learn one new song a week. The goal is not perfection; it is staying in the pocket from the first bar to the last.
Free (Songsterr Plus removes ads and unlocks all tabs for ~$10/month if you want it)
Songsterr →If you want jazz or fingerstyle funk, not rock
The path is the same — bass, amp, play along — but swap StudyBass's later modules for Scott's Bass Lessons. Scott Devine's academy is the deepest paid library for groove, technique, and improvisation, with a structured "Players Path" and a 14-day free trial (~$30/month after). It is overkill for an absolute beginner, which is why StudyBass comes first, but it is where you go once you can already hold down a tune and want to actually solo.
Why this path
Most beginners drift through random YouTube lessons, learn three half-songs, and never develop timing — the one thing a bassist is actually hired for. The bottleneck is never information; it is sequenced repetition plus playing in time with other instruments. StudyBass gives you the sequence for free, the cheap-but-properly-set-up bass removes the physical pain that makes people quit, and playing along to records builds the only skill that matters. Skip the slap-bass videos for now. Lock to the drums first; everything else is decoration.