Started my lessons today!

Today I had my first bass guitar lesson. I think the instructor didn't know quite what to do with me at first, since it appears I don't fit the usual pattern of somebody coming in for instruction. He seemed to expect that I had been playing around on my own with the instrument, and that he'd be focusing initially on theory. Instead, I know enough music theory to get by as a beginning player, but I've not actually used the instrument.

He seemed to recover quickly enough, however. I'm just starting out on some simple patterns at this point, mostly to get used to the proper fingering. He's promised that we'll be doing some work on training me to play "by ear," which I'm excited about. That's a skill that I'm sorely lacking in right now. I rely far too heavily on the written notes. So I think this will be really good for me.

One thing does concern me, though: he said that the bass player, even more than the drummer, is usually responsible for setting and holding tempo. That is something that I'll really need to work on - my internal "clock" isn't very good.