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Reddit mentions of Serious Electric Bass: The Bass Player's Complete Guide to Scales and Chords (Contemporary Bass Series)

Sentiment score: 6
Reddit mentions: 7

We found 7 Reddit mentions of Serious Electric Bass: The Bass Player's Complete Guide to Scales and Chords (Contemporary Bass Series). Here are the top ones.

Serious Electric Bass: The Bass Player's Complete Guide to Scales and Chords (Contemporary Bass Series)
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Found 7 comments on Serious Electric Bass: The Bass Player's Complete Guide to Scales and Chords (Contemporary Bass Series):

u/jetpacksforall · 4 pointsr/Bass

One important thing is to relax, and especially relax your fretting hand. If you've got the strings in a death claw, it's going to sound bad and you might eventually wind up with carpal tunnel.

Instead of trying to do hammer-ons right away, force yourself to go back to fundamentals. Set the metronome (you must have a metronome) to 40 beats per minute and play one finger per fret. Your fingers should fall immediately behind each fret. Whole notes, half notes, quarters, eighths triplets and 16ths...make sure you're playing in time with the clicks. Try to relax completely and use only the minimum amount of pressure it takes to sound each note without buzzing. The idea behind this exercise is to teach your muscle memory the exact amount of pressure you need to play a given note. Forcing yourself to play slow will give your muscles time to readjust in order to sound the notes accurately. Your fingers, wrists, body posture, etc. should be completely relaxed and comfortable throughout. If you start tensing up or feel pain or burning in your fingers, make yourself relax and loosen up.

Couple other popular hand exercises.

  1. The Soft Touch. Play exactly as above, only leave your fingers on the frets until each finger is ready to move up to the next string. Example: you play index A on the E string, middle finger A#, ring finger B, pinkie B#, keeping each finger in fret position. Now leaving your mf, ring and pinkie down on those frets, pick up your index and move it to D on the A string. Then pick up your mf and move it to play D#, ring to E, pinkie to F and hold. Then continue up the D and G strings the same way. It might help to start higher up on the neck, like C on the E string. Throughout this exercise, the most important thing is that you relax your hand. There should be no pain, no strain, no bizarre wrist angles. Just smooth, slow, relaxed and locked in to the 40 bpm pulse.

  2. The Spider. Purpose of this exercise is to learn independent control of index/ring fingers and middle/pinkie fingers. Play A on the E string with your index, then E on the A string with your ring finger. Then A# on the E with your middle, followed by F on the A string with your pinkie. Then switch up and hit B on the E string with your ring finger, followed by D on the A string with your index, then B# on the E with the pinkie and D# on the A with the middle. Alternating 1-3, 2-4 fingers the whole time. Practice that until it's comfortable (could take a few days), then play the same pattern skipping up to the D string, and finally all the way to the G string. The full spider pattern is played E string to A string, then E string to D string, then E string to G string, then back down E to D, finally back to E to A.

    For books, there's a big difference between a good one and a bad one. I can personally recommend Serious Electric Bass, Bass Logic, Bass Grooves, and Standing in the Shadows of Motown (this last book is less of a beginner's guide and more of a project you could spend a lifetime on: i.e. learning from the great James Jamerson). Also highly recommended is Ed Friedland's Building Walking Bass Lines. I also have and recommend The Bass Grimoire, but it is more a reference book for advanced scale and chord building, as opposed to a beginner's guide. Bass Guitar for Dummies is actually pretty good and comprehensive.

    And there are some good online resources as well: studybass.com is great and starts from a beginner level. Scott Devine is an amazing teacher especially with more advanced techniques, but also for fundamentals. Paul from How To Play Bass Dot Com just steps you through a bunch of popular rock & r&b tunes...not bad for picking up new songs, but it's far better to learn the theory & structure behind a song than just memorizing the finger patterns. MarloweDK is a great player with hundreds of videos, but he's highly advanced.

    Finally, musictheory.net has some great ear training exercises you can do any time, in addition to a wealth of info about basic theory that applies to all instruments.
u/skyraiderofreddit · 4 pointsr/Bass

Nice! I got Bass Fitness and Serious Electric Bass a few weeks ago and have been slowly working through them.

I got Serious Electric Bass without realizing the exercises aren't tabbed out. I've been meaning to learn how to read music for a while now so I guess there's no better time than now!

Bass Fitness is a little tedious and you've got to be really dedicated to work through it, but the payoff is totally worth it.

I highly recommend both books. It'll be a while before I'm through with both of these, but I'll check out the book you mentioned too.

u/OZONE_TempuS · 3 pointsr/Bass

This book is an extremely useful tool for reading proficiency, obviously a lot of it comes down to practice but the exercises and approaches outlined in that book are incredibly helpful.

As for theory, I don't know what you know and what you don't know: MusicTheory has a lot of lessons that covers a broad range of topics including the fundamentals, Joel Di Bartolo's Serious Electric Bass has a lot of scales and arpeggios and while it does give a little bit of explanation and the theory behind it it's not really in depth but it's a very good tool and lastly I would go over to /r/musictheory and check out their sidebar it's loaded with good resources. Also feel free to ask anything over there, it's one of the most knowledgable communities on the site.

u/ProgHog231 · 2 pointsr/Bass

Here it is: https://www.amazon.com/Serious-Electric-Bass-Complete-Contemporary/dp/1576238830. BTW, you can preview the beginning of the book - it's actually Chapter 2 where the playing part starts.

u/PhillyHx · 1 pointr/Bass

Serious Electric Bass. My good friend who mostly plays upright nowadays gave it to me. I haven't really gotten around to playing through it all, but it seems like a REALLY good book.

u/ehansen · 1 pointr/Bass

Depends on what you want to get out of it.

Are you wanting to write your own tunes? Then start with a little bit of music theory and apply that to playing (i.e.: play the A note everywhere on the board).

Are you wanting to join a band? Start looking at songs on sites like Ultimate-Guitar or Songsterr.

In the mean time, try to understand what you're doing. I bought this book at the recommendation of my teacher couple years ago and have to say, while some parts are a little dry, it will definitely get you going if you follow it: https://www.amazon.com/Serious-Electric-Bass-Complete-Contemporary/dp/1576238830/

u/Aireroth · 1 pointr/Bass

While nothing beats at least some lessons when starting out, just to get the right approach on your technique going early on, you can learn a lot on your own.

I personally went through the free lessons over at StudyBass.com, and picked up a few books: Serious Electric Bass by Joel Di Bartolo and Improvisor's Bass Method by Chuck Sher. There are of course other books that are well received and would benefit you.

For a more generic advice, try to get a practice routine going, and keep it consistent. Start out slow, with a metronome, and really focus on how your notes sound, how long they last.

If you have any more specific questions, ask away!