[SceptileMaster]

Well some of the most important things that lots of people do when they start and is detrimental to them is the following:

* Not using their ears. Musics an art based on sound so this seems obvious but it causes problems. You should learn songs by ear and be able to tune your instrument by ear. Looking at tabs or a tuner is detrimental to your true ability. It all this that stops you from hearing what you want to play then playing it... how you to do the ears you ask... well the next bullet point will explain.

* Learn your major scale. Everything in music comes from the major scale. The idea is you learn to hear what we call intervals. An interval is basically a distance in sound between two different notes. Do interval training (there is software to help this out there if you want assistance so then you can hear the difference between all 12 intervals). The idea being since all songs are made of intervals, then anything you hear on a song or in your head you can play instantly. Beats tab eh? Even if you can just remember the song in your head because you can hear intervals you can just play it instanly, no having to learn or practise songs and you can jam with anyone easily and have far more creative freedom.

* Learn chord construction... even for a bass player this is important as you'll likely to have to play real chord following basslines sometime.

Apart from that do the usual like timing practise and stuff. Playing along to records is a good way to get your technique up and apart from that keep at it. Follow this advice hopefully you should avoid all the stuff that limits a lot of modern players such as not being able to tune their guitar without looking at a needle inside a little box, or having to resort to being spoonfed how to play the simplest of things because they can't work out stuff by ear,

I hope this helps.