I've played guitar for almost 18 years and bass for roughly 5 years and also went to community college for theory and private instruction. Since then, I have re

I've played guitar for almost 18 years and bass for roughly 5 years and also went to community college for theory and private instruction. Since then, I have recorded, played shows in various genres, and have toured the US and few places in Canada and Mexico. You need to be able to find time to synthesize learning how to read music, playing music that challenges you but is within reach of your ability, ear training, and music theory. You don't need to do this in a learning context, but playing with other people (especially if it's music you are learning) is a great magnifier in my experience. I would recommend trying to learn new songs while also learning intervals, major/minor pentatonic scales, basic modes, scales, modes, chords, and arpeggios. Counting rhythms is a little tricky to learn on your own. If you can, I would take a theory class or 2 to learn this; however, YMMV. I used to be obsessed with this stuff, but I feel like it's not really important. It's sort of like the periodic table: you can memorize all of the factual information, but I would argue that what is really important is understanding the interaction of various elements. The table is a reference; it is not chemistry itself.