Music Theory for the Bass Player

Book excerpt: Music Theory for the Bass Player is a comprehensive and immediately applicable guide to making you a well-grounded groover, informed bandmate and all-around more creative musician. Included with this book are 89 videos that are incorporated in this ebook. This is a workbook, so have your bass and a pen ready to fill out the engaging Test Your Understanding questions! Have you always wanted to learn music theory but felt it was too overwhelming a task? Perhaps all the books seem to be geared toward pianists or classical players? Do you know lots of songs, but don't know how the chords are put together or how they work with the melody? If so, this is the book for you! • Starting with intervals as music's basic building blocks, you will explore scales and their modes, chords and the basics of harmony. • Packed with fretboard diagrams, musical examples and exercises, more than 180 pages of vital information are peppered with mind-bending quizzes, effective mnemonics, and compelling learning approaches. • Extensive and detailed photo demonstrations show why relaxed posture and optimized fingering are vital for good tone, timing and chops. • You can even work your way through the book without being able to read music (reading music is of course a vital skill, yet, the author believes it should not be tackled at the same time as the study of music theory, as they are different skills with a different practicing requirement. Reading becomes much easier once theory is mastered and learning theory on the fretboard using diagrams and patterns as illustrations, music theory is very accessible, immediately usable and fun. This is the definitive resource for the enthusiastic bassist! p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Helvetica} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Helvetica; min-height: 16.0px} This book and the 89 free videos stand on their own and form a thorough source for studying music theory for the bass player. If you'd like to take it a step further, the author also offers a corresponding 20 week course; this online course works with the materials in this book and practices music theory application in grooves, fills and solos. Information is on the author's blog.