The IIB Monthly Newsletter
Volume 10, Number 2
Hello 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!
Bass Shops - The Perfect Bass
Created as a side project by James Bethea after his quest for obtaining a particular bass ceased with a disappointing buying experience, The Perfect Bass started its operations in 2002. Bethea capitalized on his career in technology and his background in marketing and web development to establish his own retail business and online storefront. Within two years of its opening, The Perfect Bass had grown to a level where Bethea felt he could no longer perform both his day job and run his bass shop effectively so he decided to leave his job to pursue his passion for bass gear and delivering the highest level of customer service available. Based in a retail store and warehouse located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, The Perfect Bass provides an inventory of products for every classification of bass enthusiast including beginners, recreational players, professionals, and collectors alike. Due to their online presence and maintaining a web site that is updated on a daily basis, The Perfect Bass has become one of the leading bass specialty stores in the United States. Aside from stocking one of the largest selections of new basses, amplifiers, cabinets, effects, and accessories, The Perfect Bass assures the satisfaction of all their customers through their 5-day money back guarantee whenever a product is purchased from them either online or via phone. With their competitive player pricing, no haggling or negotiating is ever necessary, and if you ever find a lower published price for an identical product from another authorized dealer, The Perfect Bass will beat that price. ... Read More!
The IIB Launches New Online Bass Courses
The International Institute of Bassists (IIB) is an online resource dedicated to the advancement of contemporary bass performance and the study of the bass tradition. Since its founding in 1997, the IIB has established a long-time presence on the internet and grown into one of the largest and most popular bass-related web sites found online. Today, the IIB is recognized as one of the leading online publications for bass players and the promotion of all things bass. The IIB keeps both electric and acoustic upright bassists of all levels of playing experience, from novice to professionals alike, returning every day for the latest updates and information in the bass community.
If you live in a remote area and are unable to attend one-on-one lessons with a private instructor on a regular basis or you maintain a hectic schedule due to work or family commitments, the courses offered at the IIB will take your knowledge to the next level and stimulate your pursuit of playing the bass with greater depth and new insight. By studying bass online through the IIB, you can learn at your own pace, on your own time, in the comfort of your own home, at a cost that is much cheaper than the price of most one-on-one private bass lessons from a local instructor, and you can easily archive the lesson material for future reference.
The IIB offers an expanding catalog of courses in all areas of contemporary bass playing including technique, theory, sight reading, bass line construction, and soloing. These courses will enhance your understanding of techniques and theories that are crucial to you success as in independent musician. If you are seeking to increase your performance opportunities, enhance your skills, or communicate with a network of like-minded bassists, the IIB is the place for you. Please review our course catalog to explore the different ways the IIB can assist in achieving your goals.
If you live in a remote area and are unable to attend one-on-one lessons with a private instructor on a regular basis or you maintain a hectic schedule due to work or family commitments, the courses offered at the IIB will take your knowledge to the next level and stimulate your pursuit of playing the bass with greater depth and new insight. By studying bass online through the IIB, you can learn at your own pace, on your own time, in the comfort of your own home, at a cost that is much cheaper than the price of most one-on-one private bass lessons from a local instructor, and you can easily archive the lesson material for future reference.
The IIB offers an expanding catalog of courses in all areas of contemporary bass playing including technique, theory, sight reading, bass line construction, and soloing. These courses will enhance your understanding of techniques and theories that are crucial to you success as in independent musician. If you are seeking to increase your performance opportunities, enhance your skills, or communicate with a network of like-minded bassists, the IIB is the place for you. Please review our course catalog to explore the different ways the IIB can assist in achieving your goals.
Jazz Bass Lines - Contemporary Concepts For Bass Guitar & Acoustic Bass
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 Tips Of The Week
Jazz Improvisation: 3-Note Scale Cells
Understanding the relationship between the horizontal and vertical construction of music is an essential aspect to expanding your musical vocabulary and becoming a successful improviser. When discussing the harmonic structure of compositions, musicians utilize scales to represent tonal centers, and while improvising melodic phrases, you have two options as a soloist. You can play notes in skips or you can arrange notes through a series of steps. If you move by skips for more than two notes, your phrases will start to imply a chord formation, and if you move in steps for more than two notes, your phrases will suggest a scale form.
As you study transcriptions of renowned solos, you will notice that rarely will a soloist run up or down a scale in its entirety over the course of a solo because most musicians frequently change directions. If you analyze solos that were recorded by Charlie Parker, seldom will you find a phrase where he played a complete scale in an ascending or descending fashion without pausing. However, there are certain players that have made more use of scales in their improvisations. During his modal period, Miles Davis and John Coltrane would often play a phrase that contained an entire scale. Since most musicians simply don't run scales up and down during a solo, it makes sense to practice scales in smaller cells or fragments. Using scale fragments will allow you to alter directions more easily and also provide you with greater melodic freedom than playing whole scales.
In this lesson, we are going to utilize scales as melodic cells. We won't be dealing with entire scales but rather scale cells or scale fragments. The most common scale in Western-based music is the major scale. It features a particular arrangement or formula of whole steps and half steps. Besides the major scale and its related modes, there are many other scales that are built using different combinations of whole steps and half steps including the modes of the melodic minor scale, the half-step/whole-step symmetrical diminished scale, the whole-step/half-step symmetrical diminished scale, and the whole tone scale. Each of these scales can be broken down into smaller scale fragments consisting of two, three, four, and five-note cells. ... Read More!
Jazz Improvisation: Telescopes From Below & Above
One of the most conventional devices found in modern improvisation is the usage of chromaticism or chromatic ornamentation. Chromaticism may be defined as the presence of notes within a melody or passage which are not a part of the diatonic scale(s) typically associated with the particular chord type that is sounding at that time. Chromatic notes or non-diatonic tones usually resolve, diatonically, to either chord tones or scale tones (tensions). These chord or scale notes are referred to as target tones, and the target notes are normally placed on metrically strong beats within the measure (1, 2, 3, or 4).
There are many different types of chromatic rotation employed by soloists. In classical music theory, rotations are termed cambiatas. Just as its name implies, a chromatic rotation simply rotates around a target note. The target tone is generally a chord tone, but it may also be a tension (9th, 11th, or 13th). Although the target tone is ordinarily placed on a downbeat, they can be found on the upbeat as well.
In this lesson, we are going to analyze telescopes from below and above chord tones and tensions. A telescope is a form of an extended or compound chromatic rotation comprised of both diatonic and non-diatonic notes that begins with a wide leap and then encloses or rotates from below and above to a target note. These telescopes will really help intensify the underlying element of tension and release (dissonance and consonance) in phrases due to the number of notes played before being resolved to a target tone. ... Read More!
Understanding the relationship between the horizontal and vertical construction of music is an essential aspect to expanding your musical vocabulary and becoming a successful improviser. When discussing the harmonic structure of compositions, musicians utilize scales to represent tonal centers, and while improvising melodic phrases, you have two options as a soloist. You can play notes in skips or you can arrange notes through a series of steps. If you move by skips for more than two notes, your phrases will start to imply a chord formation, and if you move in steps for more than two notes, your phrases will suggest a scale form.
As you study transcriptions of renowned solos, you will notice that rarely will a soloist run up or down a scale in its entirety over the course of a solo because most musicians frequently change directions. If you analyze solos that were recorded by Charlie Parker, seldom will you find a phrase where he played a complete scale in an ascending or descending fashion without pausing. However, there are certain players that have made more use of scales in their improvisations. During his modal period, Miles Davis and John Coltrane would often play a phrase that contained an entire scale. Since most musicians simply don't run scales up and down during a solo, it makes sense to practice scales in smaller cells or fragments. Using scale fragments will allow you to alter directions more easily and also provide you with greater melodic freedom than playing whole scales.
In this lesson, we are going to utilize scales as melodic cells. We won't be dealing with entire scales but rather scale cells or scale fragments. The most common scale in Western-based music is the major scale. It features a particular arrangement or formula of whole steps and half steps. Besides the major scale and its related modes, there are many other scales that are built using different combinations of whole steps and half steps including the modes of the melodic minor scale, the half-step/whole-step symmetrical diminished scale, the whole-step/half-step symmetrical diminished scale, and the whole tone scale. Each of these scales can be broken down into smaller scale fragments consisting of two, three, four, and five-note cells. ... Read More!
Jazz Improvisation: Telescopes From Below & Above
One of the most conventional devices found in modern improvisation is the usage of chromaticism or chromatic ornamentation. Chromaticism may be defined as the presence of notes within a melody or passage which are not a part of the diatonic scale(s) typically associated with the particular chord type that is sounding at that time. Chromatic notes or non-diatonic tones usually resolve, diatonically, to either chord tones or scale tones (tensions). These chord or scale notes are referred to as target tones, and the target notes are normally placed on metrically strong beats within the measure (1, 2, 3, or 4).
There are many different types of chromatic rotation employed by soloists. In classical music theory, rotations are termed cambiatas. Just as its name implies, a chromatic rotation simply rotates around a target note. The target tone is generally a chord tone, but it may also be a tension (9th, 11th, or 13th). Although the target tone is ordinarily placed on a downbeat, they can be found on the upbeat as well.
In this lesson, we are going to analyze telescopes from below and above chord tones and tensions. A telescope is a form of an extended or compound chromatic rotation comprised of both diatonic and non-diatonic notes that begins with a wide leap and then encloses or rotates from below and above to a target note. These telescopes will really help intensify the underlying element of tension and release (dissonance and consonance) in phrases due to the number of notes played before being resolved to a target tone. ... Read More!
News
Be sure to check out the latest books, DVD's, CD's, and gear. ... Read More!
The Mile High Bass Camp
The Players School Of Music - One Week Intensive
Billy Sheehan - Holy Cow
Jon Liebman - Bass Grooves - The Ultimate Collection
The Mile High Bass Camp
The Players School Of Music - One Week Intensive
Billy Sheehan - Holy Cow
Jon Liebman - Bass Grooves - The Ultimate Collection
Advertising Special On The IIB!
If you purchase a 6-month advertising package, not only will you receive 2 months of web site advertising for FREE, but your banner will also appear in each monthly newsletter during that 6-month period for FREE! That is a savings of $150 off the regular 6-month newsletter advertising rate! In September, 1999, the IIB delivered its first monthly newsletter to less than 100 subscribers. Today, the IIB's newsletter reaches over 15,000 bass enthusiasts each month! The International Institute of Bassists is a bass-centric web site aimed specifically toward the art of contemporary bass playing and the study of the bass tradition. Since its founding in 1997, the IIB has established a long-time presence on the internet and grown into one of the largest and most popular interactive bass-related web sites found online. As a viewer of the IIB, you can read exclusive interviews with bass virtuosos including Michael Manring, Stuart Hamm, Jeff Berlin, Gary Willis, Alain Caron, Matt Garrison, Keith Horne, and Brian Bromberg to name just a few. Viewers of the IIB also have access to free, downloadable lessons which are published by a staff of highly-respected instructors such as Michael Manring, Todd Johnson, Ray Riendeau, and Berklee College of Music professor Jim Stinnett. In addition to these lessons and interviews with the bass greats, viewers have access to interviews with the founders of manufacturing companies, bass shops, and bass events along with the latest bass-related news, reviews, and streaming media. Plus, viewers can also watch selected instructional, concert performance videos, and live bass clinics on IIBtv as well as communicate with other bassists around the world through the IIB chat room. ... Read More!
The IIB Giveaways
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, 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!
ENTER TO WIN TODAY! ... Read More!
ENTER TO WIN TODAY! ... Read More!
The IIB MP3 Bass Samplers - Volumes 1 & 2
The IIB MP3 Bass Samplers are comprised of 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!
2 HOURS OF MUSIC! ... Read More!
As a subscriber, you will receive the following benefits:
The IIB Monthly Giveaways - Each month, your name will be entered in all of our various giveaways providing you with the opportunity to win 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! ... Read More!
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 90 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.
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 90 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!
If you have any comments, suggestions, news-related items such as press releases, or products that you would like to submit for review on the IIB, please feel free to e-mail: InstituteOfBass@Yahoo.com.
Thanks so much for your continued support, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Editor: The IIB
February 2009
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Thanks so much for your continued support, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Editor: The IIB
February 2009
To Unsubscribe from the IIB's monthly newsletter, simply go to: http://www.instituteofbass.com and submit your e-mail to be removed.
