The Improvisor 39;s Bass Method Pdf
Siri
The most comprehensive bass method book ever published! A complete method book, over 200 pages, filled with information and exercises on all aspects of bass playing, for both acoustic and electric bass.
Plus transcribed bass lines and solos by: Eddie Gomez, Ron Carter, David Friesen, Charles Mingus, James Jamerson, Ray Brown, Paul Jackson, Scott LaFaro, Marcus Miller, George Mraz, Jaco Pastorius, Paul Chambers, Alphonso Johnson, Jimmy Garrison, and more.
Jazz Educators Journal - "What makes the book outstanding is how it covers both the basics and the more creative aspects of bass playing. Recommended for electric or upright bass players at all levels of musicianship."
Eddie Gomez (bassist with Bill Evans, Chick Corea, and many others) - "Chuck Sher has put together a book that is informative, readily comprehensible, and highly imaginative. I recommend it for any bassist interested in expanding his awareness in the art of improvising."
Rufus Reid (author of "The Evolving Bassist") - "The book is great and Chuck Sher is to be congratulated. It is very thorough and gives a great deal of knowledge about both instruments. This is really an excellent theory book and a reference book too."
David Friesen (Inner City Records recording artist) - "Chuck Sher has sincerely made an honest and musical effort to bring to bass players a complete book on how to approach the bass violin as a creative instrument... used not as a means to an end, it may become a very valuable source of information to the serious bass player."
Hal Crook: How to improvise! this is an effective and very well thought method how to develop your own musical language. recommended for all instruments (also great for drummers and singers, who are interested in improvisation)
I was wondering is there a bass book that one can open and just play? Not instructions or extremely difficult. Just easy lines and just read with no tab bass clef walking and rhythm lines. I would love to find a book like this. Thanks and keep walking!
Hi All
I bought Ray Brown's Bass book and started working through it last night, the first exercise is playing a one octave major scale through all the keys and then the major and minor triad
In the book he starts with E major and works chromatically up untill all twelve keys have been played, (E, F, F#, G, G# etc)this strikes me as a little odd, is there a reason I'm unaware of that he has done it in this way as I would have thought working through the cycle of 5ths would be the way to do it, I'm not knocking the book I have learnt a lot by playing the exercises, I just wanderd if there was a reason for his aproach
Cheers
Marti
Hi Marti,
I would think there is no particular reason as from what I know of Ray Brown he was very much a 'be able to do it all' kind of guy, he and Herb Ellis were famous for rehearsing "the possibles" all afternoon before a show, and then jamming into the night after shows hence getting as tight as they did.
So my guess would be that the method is simply to get the material down on paper... and remember that when you have worked through that book and all the others, that you have walked the first mile of a 100,000 mile journey.
Jake
[quote name='jakesbass' post='509938' date='Jun 10 2009, 09:51 AM']Hi Marti,
I would think there is no particular reason as from what I know of Ray Brown he was very much a 'be able to do it all' kind of guy, he and Herb Ellis were famous for rehearsing "the possibles" all afternoon before a show, and then jamming into the night after shows hence getting as tight as they did.
So my guess would be that the method is simply to get the material down on paper... and remember that when you have worked through that book and all the others, that you have walked the first mile of a 100,000 mile journey.
Jake[/quote]
Hi Jake
That makes sense, the book is very no nonsense, hardly any writting at all in the book beyond the first chapter, but again, I have learnt from the very first exercise so I'm not doubting the quality of the information, it seems almost as if the figuring out what he means in the exercise is part of the exercise.
I agree, the deeper you go, the deeper it gets, seems to be the way of Jazz double bass, strangeley that is absolutley fine with me
If you don't have it already I would recommend Rufus Reid's book, 'The Evolving Bassist' it has a really good combination of technical exercises and ideas on how to construct walking lines, for intermediate to advanced. A damn good book IMO.
Jake
[quote name='jakesbass' post='509963' date='Jun 10 2009, 10:25 AM']If you don't have it already I would recommend Rufus Reid's book, 'The Evolving Bassist' it has a really good combination of technical exercises and ideas on how to construct walking lines, for intermediate to advanced. A damn good book IMO.
Jake[/quote]
I own several of these books, probably my most used is Chuck Sher's "Improvisor's Bass Method", which I started using about eighteen years ago. Scary thought!
I've been looking at these books again recently, and my opinion is that I could probably revisit them in their entirety and gain much more than I did when I first studied them. The reason being that the experience of playing jazz for almost two decades allows me to interpret the information and lessons contained within them in a far more meaningful and structured way.
With all the will in the world, there is simply no way I could have obtained the same information the first time round by myself... but if I had used the services of a tutor, I think I could have.
Over the last couple of years I've been studying classical music, and it's the same with Simandl etc., but this time I have a tutor and it really does cut out a lot of the time spent staggering around in darkness figuring out things yourself. My experience of teaching would also indicate this.
In a nutshell, I think the capability of books to self-educate people is limited, for the most part. Additional teaching support is almost certainly a requirement.
Jennifer
[quote name='endorka' post='510024' date='Jun 10 2009, 11:41 AM']I own several of these books, probably my most used is Chuck Sher's "Improvisor's Bass Method", which I started using about eighteen years ago. Scary thought!
I've been looking at these books again recently, and my opinion is that I could probably revisit them in their entirety and gain much more than I did when I first studied them. The reason being that the experience of playing jazz for almost two decades allows me to interpret the information and lessons contained within them in a far more meaningful and structured way.
With all the will in the world, there is simply no way I could have obtained the same information the first time round by myself... but if I had used the services of a tutor, I think I could have.
Over the last couple of years I've been studying classical music, and it's the same with Simandl etc., but this time I have a tutor and it really does cut out a lot of the time spent staggering around in darkness figuring out things yourself. My experience of teaching would also indicate this.
In a nutshell, I think the capability of books to self-educate people is limited, for the most part. Additional teaching support is almost certainly a requirement.
Jennifer[/quote]
Hi Jennifer
That makes a great deal of sense, I have a very good bass guitar tutor but I havent been able to find a double bass teacher, I did have a great one but he is very buisy gigging.
I have a reasonable ammount of theory behind me, what I really need at the momment is the finger board positions to keep me intonated and make playing easier and more effecient and then to advance into the more technical and theoretical side of Jazz
I have the Rufus book and DVD and both are great but I need to start a little more basic and work my way into were his book starts from.
At some point my knowledge and theory from bass guitar will begin to merge with the DB and I can really start studying Jazz propper but I need to get the physical bassics across the fingerboard down first.
Does any one know of anything aimed more toward that, that I can work on on my own, Simandl seems to be as you say a little difficult to work from without a teacher.
Thanks again all for the great info so far.
[quote name='subaudio' post='510041' date='Jun 10 2009, 12:00 PM']At some point my knowledge and theory from bass guitar will begin to merge with the DB and I can really start studying Jazz propper but I need to get the physical bassics across the fingerboard down first.
Does any one know of anything aimed more toward that, that I can work on on my own, Simandl seems to be as you say a little difficult to work from without a teacher.[/quote]
The "Evolving Bassist" has a good couple of exercises for getting your intonation and "muscle memory" together - they are Etudes II and III, starting at page 44 in my copy of the book. It is essential to do these very slowly, I'd say metronome set to crotchet=30 or even less, and also check the intonation of every note with a tuner as you're playing. If you have a sequencer or some similar software it is very instructive to program the exercises into it, then play along with them to check your tuning. Beware, this can be brutally revealing!
A similar approach can be taken with scales and arpeggios, I'll try to think of some decent books or examples for this. Another aspect of the double bass vs. bass guitar is the emphasis on working out fingerings for the music; doing the same thing in exactly the same way every time will make learning more efficient and improve intonation. The same applies to bass guitar, of course, but often people seem to take a looser approach on this instrument.
Jennifer
Thanks for that Jennifer, I'll check out the Etude tonight.
I spent a good hour working through the scale excersises in the Ray Brown book last night and it has tought me some intresting new fingerings for scales that I wouldnt have found on my own and it really utilises the open strings which is a great intonation check, cant wait to move on into the higher positions.
The bow is a bit mercyless sometimes isnt it, I practice unplugged on my NS with the bow so the neighbours dont call the cat protection league