The IIB Monthly Newsletter
Volume 10, Number 11
Happy holidays fellow bassists and friends!
Welcome to the latest issue of the International Institute of Bassists newsletter!
Welcome to the latest issue of the International Institute of Bassists newsletter!
The Next Session Of Jazz Bass Lines Begins January 4 - Enroll Today!
Jazz Bass Lines is a beginner to intermediate level course that explores all of the fundamental components of walking bass line construction. During this comprehensive 12-week course, you will acquire a vast knowledge of improvisation techniques by studying the bass lines of the most prominent jazz bassists. Following a systematic and guided approach of analysis, Jazz Bass Lines examines the key elements of walking bass line creation. This course begins by concentrating on the basic building blocks of bass parts including intervals, triads, seventh chords, and scales. As the course progresses, you will be introduced to concepts including walking bass line cells, rhythmic embellishments, the two feel, and the utilization of those components in practical application. Students will analyze transcriptions, play-alongs, and essential listening tracks of classic walking bass lines to assist in learning the proper integration of technique, sound, and feel. Special emphasis is placed on the 12-bar blues song form along with a collection of legendary bass tracks recorded by Ray Brown, Ron Carter, and Paul Chambers. By the end of this course, not only will you possess a deeper awareness of what makes a walking bass line great but you will also have expanded your fretboard familiarity, developed an incredible set of skills that will provide you with a greater understanding of how the bass functions within a band, and feel more confident in your ability to improvise effectively over jazz standards. From the basics of traditional walking bass line construction to more advanced contemporary principles, Jazz Bass Lines is designed to establish the essential foundation and indispensable vocabulary that is necessary for bassists interested in the art of improvising bass lines. This course is a must for anyone passionate about becoming a proficient bass player and serious about furthering their knowledge of improvisation. ... Read More!
Bass Lessons Of The Week
Sight Reading For Bass: Rock Bass Lines
If you take an analytical approach to sight reading standard notation and break it down into its fundamental elements, you are left with two primary components consisting of notes and rhythms. In order to begin sight reading standard notation for bass, you must have two pieces of note-based information committed to memory including the notes on the staff in the bass clef as well as the position of those notes on the fingerboard. Since there are only 12 unique pitches in the Western-based musical alphabet, memorizing their positions on the staff in the bass clef as well as on the fingerboard of your instrument is a relatively easy task. The much more challenging aspect of sight reading standard notation is experienced in learning to instantly recognize rhythms because unlike notes where there are a relatively few number of them, the rhythmic combinations you could be potentially presented with in a piece of standard notation are practically limitless. Once you have the notes on the staff as well as on your instrument thoroughly internalized, the position of those notes will never change. The only thing about those notes that is going to change will be their function as they are applied to different chord types.
In this lesson, you are presented with a collection of rock bass lines in an effort to increase the proficiency of your note recognition skills when sight reading standard notation for bass. Unlike the rhythmic recognition exercises which we discussed previously where you begin practicing them at a tempo that is as slow as you need it to be in order to play the rhythms perfectly in time without making any errors, I recommend that you start reading through these note recognition exercises at a challenging tempo to simulate what would be expected of you in a live performance application. The tempo that you choose to begin with will be at your discretion. To track your progress, read through all these bass lines against the steady, even pulse of a metronome or drum machine. Start with a tempo that isn't too slow because you need to be challenged, but at the same time, don't begin with a tempo that is too fast which causes you to create errors. From there, continually increase the tempo with each subsequent pass through these bass lines.
At first, try to read through these grooves one line at a time without pausing. Eventually, your goal should be to play through complete pages in their entirety without stopping due to a mistake. If any errors occur, stop and correct them before proceeding, and if you are having a particularly difficult time with a measure, decrease the tempo significantly so that you don't allow yourself to become frustrated and continue to reinforce bad habits through inaccuracy. Most musicians will overlook the significance of elemental exercises like these and rush through them in a sloppy fashion in order to get to more advanced material, but don't sacrifice accuracy for speed because this will be counterproductive to our long term goals. The best sight readers can be presented with standard notation, sight read that material perfectly on the first take, and make their performance sound like a prepared piece of music that they have been playing for years.
If any of the exercises seem easy, simply increase the tempo. No matter how fast you can read through these lines error-free, you can always improve your note recognition skills and heighten the degree of difficulty by increasing the tempo. Becoming a proficient sight reader of standard notation on an advanced level is a process that takes dedication and time. This isn't a subject area that anyone is going to have completely mastered within just a couple weeks or even a couple months.
After you have successfully completed reading through these rock bass lines, go back and practice transposing each groove to all of the other keys. You can also commit these bass lines to memory to utilize in live performances.
Although these exercises may seem somewhat dry since memorizing notes on a sheet of standard notation and your bass isn't the most exciting task you will ever devote time to practicing, great strides can be made in your ability to sight read standard notation over a relatively short span of time by concentrating on these basic note recognition exercises. By becoming a skilled sight reader, you will see your options as a working bassist increase exponentially because you will be able to more effectively communicate with other musicians. There are so many gigs available which require the ability to read standard notation. Whether your goal is to become a commercial session bassist, a member of the college jazz ensemble, bass chair of the local symphony orchestra, play in the school musical, or provide support in your community church, becoming a proficient sight reader will only increase your opportunities and chances of obtaining these gigs. Not only does being able to sight read greatly increase your value as an in-demand bass player, but as an additional benefit, it also makes your practice sessions much more productive since you are able to use that time more efficiently and cover more material. ... Read More!
Soloing Techniques: Now's The Time
One of the most effective ways to learn how to solo involves the transcription, analysis, emulation, and manipulation of the phrases recorded by your favorite soloists. Similar to learning a new language, soloing involves studying and using a vocabulary to express and develop ideas. Because note choice, rhythm, and phrasing are too many variables to consider at the beginning, transcribed solos that have been recorded by your favorite musicians will initially limit your focus and help establish a solid foundation so you don't feel overwhelmed with all of the possibilities that are available to you as a soloist.
Keep a collection of transcribed solos by your favorite bassists, saxophonists, trumpet players, pianists, and guitarists. This archive may consist of solos you've personally transcribed as well as solos you've acquired through other resources. Even though there are a number of outstanding bass soloists including John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin, be sure to check out the solos of other great instrumentalists like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Oscar Peterson.
As bassists, we devote most of our time to practicing grooves since our primary function in an ensemble is to provide support within the rhythm section, and as a result, bassists are generally not the best soloists. While bassists such as John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin spent time analyzing bass solos early in their development, today they are considered elite bass guitar soloists because they have spent a significant amount of time studying solos that were recorded by their favorite horn players, pianists, and guitarists which they then assimilated into their own approach. By examining the solos played by horn players, for example, you are presented with a different approach to playing bass since horn players don't have to deal with the same physical limitations that are imposed by a fretted bass guitar.
After you transcribe the lines of your favorite soloists, practice playing them along with the recordings by memorization without referring to the notation. Listen very deeply to how the master soloists communicate through the language of improvisation. Strive to not only play all of the notes and rhythms perfectly but also emulate the sound and feel that has been captured on the recordings as close as possible. Pay particular attention to all the little nuances and inflections that soloists often incorporate into their phrases, and try to make an emotional connection to the solos. Once you understand how they arrange their phrases, you will be able to utilize that knowledge and create more sophisticated solos by altering the basic structure of your favorite phrases through melodic interpretation and rhythmic displacement and then assimilate those ideas into your own solos.
As a soloist, one technique of melodic interpretation involves the varying of phrase lengths. This can be accomplished through either phrase extension (prolongation) or phrase compression (reduction). Phrase extension can be applied by simply making the durations of notes longer or including notes not found in the original melody. Phrase compression is a technique where a portion of the phrase is omitted or note durations are shortened.
Besides altering the melodic vocabulary within a phrase using the techniques of extension and reduction, phrases can be modified through rhythmic displacement. Rhythmic displacement is a basic musical concept that involves taking a figure and manipulating it by simply shifting notes from their original position to other beats within the music. Effective rhythmic phrasing is an essential aspect of sustaining rhythmic interest. When presenting a speech, the best speakers will pause in order to allow the listeners to absorb the information. Great soloists take the same approach and will incorporate pauses so that the listeners can process the musical ideas being expressed. A completely different solo phrase can be created by just changing the place within the measure where you begin and end phrases as well as manipulating the length of the phrases.
Have you ever sat through a speech where the speaker talked in a monotone voice throughout the entire presentation? Just as a skillful speaker will use different inflections during a speech, sophisticated soloists will integrate various articulation techniques, dynamics, and vibrato into their phrases. Instead of just playing the notes without accents, you can breathe life into your phrases by using articulations such as grace notes, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. You can also assimilate different degrees of dynamics and vibrato according to your personal taste. If, as a soloist, you don't insert a combination of both melodic and rhythmic interest into your solos, listeners will simply tune you out as they would someone speaking in a monotone voice so you should always try to maintain interesting and varied phrasing.
Learn as many melodies as possible because they usually contain repetition and the best target notes, and experiment with improvising phrases using variations on those melodies. This is a great way to understand how ideas relate to each other which will help you expand and personalize your own ideas. Melodies can begin early, start late, speed up, or slow down, and the accompaniment will continue. By learning how to play and interpret melodies, you will acquire the ability to break free of outlining every chord change that is played because you will learn to hear the chord progressions moving underneath your phrases instead of using specific note choice to constantly remind you of the chord changes. As you learn more melodies, you will acquire a sense of the independence the melodic instrument has from the accompaniment.
In this lesson, we will take a look at a blues-based solo recorded by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker on "Now's The Time." Parker was one of the most prominent figures of the bebop era and is today regarded as one of the most innovative musicians in the history of jazz music. He created a musical legacy that will continue to influence musicians for generations to come. Over half of Parker's original compositions were written in the standard blues form, and this brilliant solo on "Now's The Time" features an extensive collection of melodic phrases over the 12-bar blues in F. Parker recorded "Now's The Time" at his first studio session as a leader in 1945. Since the 12-bar blues is the most common set of chord changes utilized in the jazz repertoire and the foundation of numerous jazz standards, you can take your favorite phrases from this solo and easily incorporate them into other jazz tunes.
First, I recommend that you listen to the recording of "Now's The Time." If you don't currently own this track, I suggest that you check it out so that you can make your performance of this solo sound horn-like by mimicking all of the articulations including the scoops, falls, vibrato, dynamics, and other subtle blues inflections that you will hear on the recording because these nuances are often lost when interpreting only standard notation. Next, play this transcription of Parker's solo many times. It is not necessary to play Parker's phrases at the recorded tempo in order to acquire insight to his music. To provide easier comparison of Parker's phrases between choruses, I have notated this solo in the bass clef and recommend playing this transcription one octave higher than indicated when possible. Then, using this solo as a template, create your own variations of these phrases by experimenting with the techniques of melodic interpretation and rhythmic displacement. Finally, expand these concepts by transcribing and analyzing the lines of your favorite soloists, and incorporate modified excerpts of those phrases into your own solos. When studying solos, take note of how soloists embellish key notes, how they begin and end phrases, the way in which they vary phrase lengths, and the different methods they use to articulate the tones. By developing this approach to soloing, you can borrow ideas that have been recorded by your favorite soloists and then create solos that are in their styles but at the same time still retain your own voice since you are using altered phrases and not playing excerpts note-for-note. ... Read More!
Sight Reading For Bass: Notes On The B, E, A, D & G Strings
When taking an analytical approach to sight reading and breaking standard notation down into its most fundamental elements, you are left with two primary components consisting of notes and rhythms. With regard to note recognition, you must have two pieces of note-based information committed to memory in order to begin sight reading standard notation for bass.
- The notes on the staff in the bass clef (F clef)
- The position of those notes on the fingerboard
Since there are only 12 unique pitches in the Western-based musical alphabet (not including the enharmonic equivalents or the different spellings of the same-sounding pitch such as F#/Gb), memorizing their positions on the staff in the bass clef as well as on the fingerboard of your instrument is a relatively easy task. The much more challenging aspect of sight reading standard notation is experienced in learning to instantly recognize rhythms. Unlike notes where there are a relatively few number of them, the rhythmic possibilities you could be potentially presented with in a piece of standard notation are practically limitless.
Once you have the notes on the staff as well as on your instrument thoroughly internalized, the position of those notes will never change. The only thing about those notes that is going to change will be the function of those notes as they are applied to different chord types.
In this lesson, you will find all of the note-based information that every bassist must have memorized in order to start sight reading standard notation for bass including the notes on the staff in the bass clef and the positions of those notes on the fingerboard as indicated through the tablature.
Although memorizing notes on a sheet of standard notation and your bass isn't the most exciting task you will ever devote time to practicing, it is one of the most rewarding. Great strides can be made in your ability to sight read standard notation over a relatively short span of time by concentrating on these basic note recognition exercises. By becoming a skilled sight reader, you will see your options as a working bassist increase exponentially because you will be able to more effectively communicate with other musicians. There are so many gigs available which require the ability to read standard notation. Whether your goal is to be a commercial session bassist, a member of the college jazz ensemble, bass chair of the local symphony orchestra, play in the school musical, or provide support in your community church, becoming a proficient sight reader will only increase your opportunities and chances of obtaining these gigs. Not only does being able to sight read greatly increase your value as an in-demand bass player, but as an additional benefit, it also makes your practice sessions much more productive since you are able to use that time more efficiently and cover more material. ... Read More!
If you take an analytical approach to sight reading standard notation and break it down into its fundamental elements, you are left with two primary components consisting of notes and rhythms. In order to begin sight reading standard notation for bass, you must have two pieces of note-based information committed to memory including the notes on the staff in the bass clef as well as the position of those notes on the fingerboard. Since there are only 12 unique pitches in the Western-based musical alphabet, memorizing their positions on the staff in the bass clef as well as on the fingerboard of your instrument is a relatively easy task. The much more challenging aspect of sight reading standard notation is experienced in learning to instantly recognize rhythms because unlike notes where there are a relatively few number of them, the rhythmic combinations you could be potentially presented with in a piece of standard notation are practically limitless. Once you have the notes on the staff as well as on your instrument thoroughly internalized, the position of those notes will never change. The only thing about those notes that is going to change will be their function as they are applied to different chord types.
In this lesson, you are presented with a collection of rock bass lines in an effort to increase the proficiency of your note recognition skills when sight reading standard notation for bass. Unlike the rhythmic recognition exercises which we discussed previously where you begin practicing them at a tempo that is as slow as you need it to be in order to play the rhythms perfectly in time without making any errors, I recommend that you start reading through these note recognition exercises at a challenging tempo to simulate what would be expected of you in a live performance application. The tempo that you choose to begin with will be at your discretion. To track your progress, read through all these bass lines against the steady, even pulse of a metronome or drum machine. Start with a tempo that isn't too slow because you need to be challenged, but at the same time, don't begin with a tempo that is too fast which causes you to create errors. From there, continually increase the tempo with each subsequent pass through these bass lines.
At first, try to read through these grooves one line at a time without pausing. Eventually, your goal should be to play through complete pages in their entirety without stopping due to a mistake. If any errors occur, stop and correct them before proceeding, and if you are having a particularly difficult time with a measure, decrease the tempo significantly so that you don't allow yourself to become frustrated and continue to reinforce bad habits through inaccuracy. Most musicians will overlook the significance of elemental exercises like these and rush through them in a sloppy fashion in order to get to more advanced material, but don't sacrifice accuracy for speed because this will be counterproductive to our long term goals. The best sight readers can be presented with standard notation, sight read that material perfectly on the first take, and make their performance sound like a prepared piece of music that they have been playing for years.
If any of the exercises seem easy, simply increase the tempo. No matter how fast you can read through these lines error-free, you can always improve your note recognition skills and heighten the degree of difficulty by increasing the tempo. Becoming a proficient sight reader of standard notation on an advanced level is a process that takes dedication and time. This isn't a subject area that anyone is going to have completely mastered within just a couple weeks or even a couple months.
After you have successfully completed reading through these rock bass lines, go back and practice transposing each groove to all of the other keys. You can also commit these bass lines to memory to utilize in live performances.
Although these exercises may seem somewhat dry since memorizing notes on a sheet of standard notation and your bass isn't the most exciting task you will ever devote time to practicing, great strides can be made in your ability to sight read standard notation over a relatively short span of time by concentrating on these basic note recognition exercises. By becoming a skilled sight reader, you will see your options as a working bassist increase exponentially because you will be able to more effectively communicate with other musicians. There are so many gigs available which require the ability to read standard notation. Whether your goal is to become a commercial session bassist, a member of the college jazz ensemble, bass chair of the local symphony orchestra, play in the school musical, or provide support in your community church, becoming a proficient sight reader will only increase your opportunities and chances of obtaining these gigs. Not only does being able to sight read greatly increase your value as an in-demand bass player, but as an additional benefit, it also makes your practice sessions much more productive since you are able to use that time more efficiently and cover more material. ... Read More!
Soloing Techniques: Now's The Time
One of the most effective ways to learn how to solo involves the transcription, analysis, emulation, and manipulation of the phrases recorded by your favorite soloists. Similar to learning a new language, soloing involves studying and using a vocabulary to express and develop ideas. Because note choice, rhythm, and phrasing are too many variables to consider at the beginning, transcribed solos that have been recorded by your favorite musicians will initially limit your focus and help establish a solid foundation so you don't feel overwhelmed with all of the possibilities that are available to you as a soloist.
Keep a collection of transcribed solos by your favorite bassists, saxophonists, trumpet players, pianists, and guitarists. This archive may consist of solos you've personally transcribed as well as solos you've acquired through other resources. Even though there are a number of outstanding bass soloists including John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin, be sure to check out the solos of other great instrumentalists like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Oscar Peterson.
As bassists, we devote most of our time to practicing grooves since our primary function in an ensemble is to provide support within the rhythm section, and as a result, bassists are generally not the best soloists. While bassists such as John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin spent time analyzing bass solos early in their development, today they are considered elite bass guitar soloists because they have spent a significant amount of time studying solos that were recorded by their favorite horn players, pianists, and guitarists which they then assimilated into their own approach. By examining the solos played by horn players, for example, you are presented with a different approach to playing bass since horn players don't have to deal with the same physical limitations that are imposed by a fretted bass guitar.
After you transcribe the lines of your favorite soloists, practice playing them along with the recordings by memorization without referring to the notation. Listen very deeply to how the master soloists communicate through the language of improvisation. Strive to not only play all of the notes and rhythms perfectly but also emulate the sound and feel that has been captured on the recordings as close as possible. Pay particular attention to all the little nuances and inflections that soloists often incorporate into their phrases, and try to make an emotional connection to the solos. Once you understand how they arrange their phrases, you will be able to utilize that knowledge and create more sophisticated solos by altering the basic structure of your favorite phrases through melodic interpretation and rhythmic displacement and then assimilate those ideas into your own solos.
As a soloist, one technique of melodic interpretation involves the varying of phrase lengths. This can be accomplished through either phrase extension (prolongation) or phrase compression (reduction). Phrase extension can be applied by simply making the durations of notes longer or including notes not found in the original melody. Phrase compression is a technique where a portion of the phrase is omitted or note durations are shortened.
Besides altering the melodic vocabulary within a phrase using the techniques of extension and reduction, phrases can be modified through rhythmic displacement. Rhythmic displacement is a basic musical concept that involves taking a figure and manipulating it by simply shifting notes from their original position to other beats within the music. Effective rhythmic phrasing is an essential aspect of sustaining rhythmic interest. When presenting a speech, the best speakers will pause in order to allow the listeners to absorb the information. Great soloists take the same approach and will incorporate pauses so that the listeners can process the musical ideas being expressed. A completely different solo phrase can be created by just changing the place within the measure where you begin and end phrases as well as manipulating the length of the phrases.
Have you ever sat through a speech where the speaker talked in a monotone voice throughout the entire presentation? Just as a skillful speaker will use different inflections during a speech, sophisticated soloists will integrate various articulation techniques, dynamics, and vibrato into their phrases. Instead of just playing the notes without accents, you can breathe life into your phrases by using articulations such as grace notes, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. You can also assimilate different degrees of dynamics and vibrato according to your personal taste. If, as a soloist, you don't insert a combination of both melodic and rhythmic interest into your solos, listeners will simply tune you out as they would someone speaking in a monotone voice so you should always try to maintain interesting and varied phrasing.
Learn as many melodies as possible because they usually contain repetition and the best target notes, and experiment with improvising phrases using variations on those melodies. This is a great way to understand how ideas relate to each other which will help you expand and personalize your own ideas. Melodies can begin early, start late, speed up, or slow down, and the accompaniment will continue. By learning how to play and interpret melodies, you will acquire the ability to break free of outlining every chord change that is played because you will learn to hear the chord progressions moving underneath your phrases instead of using specific note choice to constantly remind you of the chord changes. As you learn more melodies, you will acquire a sense of the independence the melodic instrument has from the accompaniment.
In this lesson, we will take a look at a blues-based solo recorded by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker on "Now's The Time." Parker was one of the most prominent figures of the bebop era and is today regarded as one of the most innovative musicians in the history of jazz music. He created a musical legacy that will continue to influence musicians for generations to come. Over half of Parker's original compositions were written in the standard blues form, and this brilliant solo on "Now's The Time" features an extensive collection of melodic phrases over the 12-bar blues in F. Parker recorded "Now's The Time" at his first studio session as a leader in 1945. Since the 12-bar blues is the most common set of chord changes utilized in the jazz repertoire and the foundation of numerous jazz standards, you can take your favorite phrases from this solo and easily incorporate them into other jazz tunes.
First, I recommend that you listen to the recording of "Now's The Time." If you don't currently own this track, I suggest that you check it out so that you can make your performance of this solo sound horn-like by mimicking all of the articulations including the scoops, falls, vibrato, dynamics, and other subtle blues inflections that you will hear on the recording because these nuances are often lost when interpreting only standard notation. Next, play this transcription of Parker's solo many times. It is not necessary to play Parker's phrases at the recorded tempo in order to acquire insight to his music. To provide easier comparison of Parker's phrases between choruses, I have notated this solo in the bass clef and recommend playing this transcription one octave higher than indicated when possible. Then, using this solo as a template, create your own variations of these phrases by experimenting with the techniques of melodic interpretation and rhythmic displacement. Finally, expand these concepts by transcribing and analyzing the lines of your favorite soloists, and incorporate modified excerpts of those phrases into your own solos. When studying solos, take note of how soloists embellish key notes, how they begin and end phrases, the way in which they vary phrase lengths, and the different methods they use to articulate the tones. By developing this approach to soloing, you can borrow ideas that have been recorded by your favorite soloists and then create solos that are in their styles but at the same time still retain your own voice since you are using altered phrases and not playing excerpts note-for-note. ... Read More!
Sight Reading For Bass: Notes On The B, E, A, D & G Strings
When taking an analytical approach to sight reading and breaking standard notation down into its most fundamental elements, you are left with two primary components consisting of notes and rhythms. With regard to note recognition, you must have two pieces of note-based information committed to memory in order to begin sight reading standard notation for bass.
- The notes on the staff in the bass clef (F clef)
- The position of those notes on the fingerboard
Since there are only 12 unique pitches in the Western-based musical alphabet (not including the enharmonic equivalents or the different spellings of the same-sounding pitch such as F#/Gb), memorizing their positions on the staff in the bass clef as well as on the fingerboard of your instrument is a relatively easy task. The much more challenging aspect of sight reading standard notation is experienced in learning to instantly recognize rhythms. Unlike notes where there are a relatively few number of them, the rhythmic possibilities you could be potentially presented with in a piece of standard notation are practically limitless.
Once you have the notes on the staff as well as on your instrument thoroughly internalized, the position of those notes will never change. The only thing about those notes that is going to change will be the function of those notes as they are applied to different chord types.
In this lesson, you will find all of the note-based information that every bassist must have memorized in order to start sight reading standard notation for bass including the notes on the staff in the bass clef and the positions of those notes on the fingerboard as indicated through the tablature.
Although memorizing notes on a sheet of standard notation and your bass isn't the most exciting task you will ever devote time to practicing, it is one of the most rewarding. Great strides can be made in your ability to sight read standard notation over a relatively short span of time by concentrating on these basic note recognition exercises. By becoming a skilled sight reader, you will see your options as a working bassist increase exponentially because you will be able to more effectively communicate with other musicians. There are so many gigs available which require the ability to read standard notation. Whether your goal is to be a commercial session bassist, a member of the college jazz ensemble, bass chair of the local symphony orchestra, play in the school musical, or provide support in your community church, becoming a proficient sight reader will only increase your opportunities and chances of obtaining these gigs. Not only does being able to sight read greatly increase your value as an in-demand bass player, but as an additional benefit, it also makes your practice sessions much more productive since you are able to use that time more efficiently and cover more material. ... Read More!
News
Be sure to check out the latest books, DVD's, CD's, and gear. ... Read More!
Norm Stockton - Tea In The Typhoon
Brent Rusinow - "Old Guy" Time!
Chuck Sher - Foundation Exercises For Bass
Bass Workout California - February 19 - 20, 2010
Norm Stockton - Tea In The Typhoon
Brent Rusinow - "Old Guy" Time!
Chuck Sher - Foundation Exercises For Bass
Bass Workout California - February 19 - 20, 2010
Stinnett Music Online School
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Each month, the IIB gives its viewers the opportunity to participate in various monthly giveaways. Sponsored by: D'Addario, Planet Waves, LightWave Systems, Ibanez, Markbass, Line 6, Epifani Custom Sound, Evidence Audio, Nordstrand Pickups, Zon Guitars, Comfort Strapp, and BassBooks.com. To become eligible to win products including basses, amplifiers, speaker cabinets, combo amps, effects, strings, instrument cables, pickups, gig bags, straps, gift certificates, DVD's, CD's, books, lessons, t-shirts, and more!
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The IIB MP3 Bass Samplers - Volumes 1 & 2 - You'll receive access to the IIB MP3 Bass Samplers which feature selected tracks that have been recorded by many of today's premier bass artists including Marcus Miller, Michael Manring, Stuart Hamm, Gary Willis, Adam Nitti, Norm Stockton, Ray Riendeau, Tom Kennedy, Yves Carbonne, Gerald Veasley, and many more. 2 HOURS OF MUSIC! ... Read More!
Bass Tips Of The Week - You will have access to a huge database of lesson material that has been written on subjects such as Classical & Jazz Music Theory, Sight Reading, Ear Training, Bass Line Construction, Right & Left Hand Technique, Soloing, Jazz Improvisation, Slapping, Tapping, Chordal Techniques, Harmonics, Fingerstyle Funk, Altered Tunings, and Concepts For Solo Bass Playing. All of the lessons are available as downloadable PDF files.
There are over 100 individual lessons and over 100 MP3 play-alongs currently available for download within the IIB Subscriber's Area.
By becoming a subscriber, you will help keep this resource online for you and others to enjoy in the future.
CLICK HERE To Subscribe Today For Only $9.95 Per Year!
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Thanks so much for your continued support, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Editor: The IIB
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Thanks so much for your continued support, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Editor: The IIB
To Unsubscribe from the IIB's monthly newsletter, simply go to: http://www.instituteofbass.com and submit your e-mail to be removed.
