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There are only two ways to improve your bass playing:

1. Improve the technical/physical side of what you play - either improve plucking hand speeds or fretting hand facility or work on improved plucking hand or fretting hand system. This is a long term play.
2. Improve the mental side of what you play - this is working on 'what you play' and improving it by increasing your vocabulary or learning how to connect the vocabulary you know better and so on.  This is Bass IQ.  And growth from improving your Bass IQ works by compounding.  And leads to exponential growth.

In The Duck Dunn Challenge we'll be focusing on the latter by analyzing the foundational devices of Stax and Blues bass legend Donald "Duck" Dunn.

As a side effect, what we're going to be learning and practicing will also improve the physical aspect of your playing.

I've analyzed (and transribed) all of Duck's seminal performances looking for the commonly repeated ideas and devices.

And I turned this into a sequential learning system that bass players of even relatively moderate abilities can benefit from and improve with (Scroll down to see two lines composed by students who probably have no more ability than you).

Summarized this multi year process reduces down to 4 lines:

1.  Identifying the core ideas Duck Dunn used in his soul and blues playing.
2.  Put those ideas into a sequential learning system
3.  Add in the secret sauce - a technique I developed called “deliberate composition” helps students put Duck's ideas together to create their own bass lines.
4.  All combined and packaged in a months worth of hyper focused learning (though you can take it at your own pace).

This is your chance to learn directly from Duck's work..

Duck is one of the giants of bass.

This is your chance to stand on that giant's shoulders.

It's also a chance to learn more in a condensed period of time than most people learn in 6 months or longer.

By the end of the Duck Dunn Challenge you’ll have leapfrogged your contemporaries in terms of the devices and ideas that you  know and, much more importantly, you'll know how to put those ideas together to create compelling bass lines.

Here's How The Challenge Works...

Focusing on something for a set period of time - like a month - is a proven way to acquire new skills, take existing skills to a new level...basically to get shit done.

When you enroll there are 7 pre-training days already in your account. . And Day 1 of the Challenge is already live in your account..

The Challenge is split into learning weeks of 5 "learning days" followed by a bonus day and a rest day. Everytime a new lesson goes live you get an email letting you know.

Each new lesson either layers directly on top of a previous lesson or introduces a new device or concept for you to add to your toolbox of ideas.  Each lesson has suggested practice exercises to work on assimilating new devices and from Week 2 onwards we'll go through putting those devices and ideas into bass lines that work.

Daily Lesson Format

Each 'day' of the Challenge has a similar format:

• there is a PDF of the lesson to download that you can either print out or add to a device like an iPad so you can read when not connected to the internet
• the text is on the web page along with the music graphics AND the videos demonstrating each example

I took Day 1 - which is already live and waiting for you in the members area -  and resized it a little and took screen shots of it to give you an idea of how it looks like in the Challenge.  Obviously when YOU access it, it will be much more legible!

Depending on your current ability level each lesson takes about 30-45 minutes to read, watch the examples and anything from 30 to 120 minutes to put into practice.  (These are approximations - like just about everything the more you put in, the more you'll get out.)

Here are some of the things you're going to be working on to improve your Bass IQ in this Duck Dunn Challenge:

You'll also be creating your own lines using all of the above ideas (and more) using a technique that I've pioneered and teach all my students that's called deliberate composition!  (If all you took from this Challenge was deliberate composition plus a handful of devices and how to connect them, you'd still be on track to make big improvements in your bass playing.)

I've run multiple Challenges in different genres in the last few years teaching over 1000 students in the process. I've taken screenshots of comments so you can check out what students just like you think...here's the first screenshot:

Or how about this for the kind of effect the Challenge will have not only on your playing but also how you hear bass lines:

(If you need to see more testimonials and comments I've added a bunch at the bottom of the page.)

I wanted to make this challenge totally affordable but also be enough money so that those students who take the Challenge value what they've invested in and it gives them a kick to do the actual work.  (If they don't do the work...it's just information that's going unused and collecting virtual dust on the Interwebz).

Now each lesson in the Duck Dunn Challenge covers a similar amount of ground as a lesson with a face to face teacher would.  Good teachers (and they are rare as hens teeth) charge around $75 to $100 per lesson.  Let's err on the low side and say you can find a good teacher for just $50.  30 Lessons with such a teacher requires an investment of $1500.

Plus the opportunity cost of travel time (if it's not on Skype).  And travel expenses.  And unless you record the lesson in some ways - which most teachers won't allow - then you have to be great at taking notes and recall (which takes up more time).

Not to mention the bonus lessons, the critique library, the BIAB Style Pack, the analyzed sight reading etudes with practice tracks and more (see below).

So let's say that's the equivalent of around another 10 lessons worth that would take your investment to $2000.

If you enroll on the the Closeout Version of the The Duck Dunn Challenge today though you won't pay $2000.

You won't pay half of that - $1000.

You won't even pay a tenth of that - $200.

Instead, the investment requires to enroll on this unique program where you can learn the foundational devices and ideas that Duck Dunn used and put them to use in your own playing is just...

If you're ready to invest in yourself and your bass playing by enrolling on the Duck Dunn Challenge Self Study version  click the 'Join Now' button below:

The previous version of the Duck Dunn Challenge was a 'live' version.

Which meant that the students submitted their compositions (daily from Day 8) to the Private Accountability Group where I would critique them.

And so they got direct feedback on things that they could improve.

But they could also see compositions by their fellow students AND my critiques of those compositions.  Which is a great learning opportunity.

However the private accountability group was hosted on Facebook. That puts some students off - because they have concerns about privacy and the like.  (Concerns that I share btw and I'll not be using Facebook much more.)

For the self study Version of the Challenge I can't replicate that direct experience with direct critiques but what I have done is create a 'critique library' for the corresponding 'Days' in the Challenge where some of the Student's Compositions are copied over along with my critiques.

Some of the students submitted their compositions by printing out blank chord charts provided in the lesson PDFs and writing them in by hand.  Some of them composed into software.  And some even exported their composition as a midi file and turned it into an audio file.

Here's an example  from Day 24 of a different challenge - this one is from a student who is primarily  a blues player and never played any soul or R&B:

And here's another one where the student created sound files of his compositions so I could listen to them as I followed along with the notation.

Here's the audio file to listen to on Soundcloud (by clicking):

SOUNDCLOUD DAY 26 COMPOSITION

And here's a photo of his composition - and so you know this composition which is sophisticated and complex is wayyyyyy beyond his current level of playing. But by learning about different foundational devices that all bass players use and how they go together he was able to create a bass line like this:

You've seen the examples above from  students who are already putting Duck's foundational devices to work and creating their own bass lines using his ideas....

There's also a guarantee that fully covers the cost of enrollment so all the risk is on me (see below).

So it's time for you to make I decision - and the way I see it you have three options:

Option #1 - do nothing and your bass playing will stay pretty much exactly as it is right now

Option #2 - create your own program to study Duck Dunn.  You can analyze all of the published transcription of Duck's work as a start.  Then you'll need to transcribe a bunch more of his performances and analyze those.  Once you've analyzed at least 25 to 30 of Duck's performances you should start to have a good idea on which devices and ideas he used (and re-used) in his bass playing career.

Then all you'll need to do is work out a sequential learning system to internalize and assimilate those devices and ideas AND develop a system to teach yourself how to take those devices and ideas and turn them into good bass lines.

If you're willing to work hard transcribing and analyzing you may be able to pull it off. (If you need to budget time for this....budgeting 500 hours would be a good starting point)

Option #3 - let my system do the heavy lifting for you.  It's already been used by hundreds of students with highly positive results that YOU could have for yourself.

Of these three options, ask yourself this question: What's Going To Be Easiest For You?

In my experience there are two types of students....those who dream about playing to a higher level without taking the required action to make it happen.

And those who are ready to take action when the opportunity presents itself to them.

Which one are you: the dreamer (who in a months time will be in EXACTLY the same place you are now) or the action taker (who in a months time will be finishing up the Duck Dunn Challenge and be armed with a ton of ideas to put into your bass playing in the coming months)?

Although Duck Dunn is the  bass player that we're learning from in this  Challenge..... the Challenge is (counter-intuitively)  NOT about trying to sound like Duck Dunn.

Duck is rightly considered a great and influenctial bass player who produced great bass lines like Sweet Home Chicago, She Caught The Katy, Soul Man, Knock On Wood and a string of others that are loved and admired in equal measure by the majority of the bass community.

We're going to learn the foundational devices that Duck used so that they are part of your playing and we're going to learn how to put those devices together to create YOUR bass lines. And we'll get to some advanced rhythms and materials in the last few days of the Challenge.

Paul Wolfe/how-to-play-bass.com

P.S. In case you're one of those people like me who likes to skip to the end...here's the deal:

When you join the Duck Dunn Challenge (for just $97 ) you're going to get access to a unique Challenge that will improve your bass playing, improve your understanding of constructing bass lines and kick start the process of confidently creating your own interesting bass lines modelled on the playing of the mighty Duck Dunn!

More Testimonials And Comments From This And Other Challenges

As I said in the body of this page, over 200 students have already been through this 40 Day Challenge and I've taken screenshots of emails and facebook comments about the Challenge that you can look through.

The following is a screenshot of email answers from Student Tim G:

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