Customer Reviews

The Complete Electric Bass Player, Book 1: The Method

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a serious, step-by-step approach to electric bass. It has detailed descriptions of the important music-theory concepts and pictures and explanations of proper right and left hand-positions for a beginner. Someone else here said this book was not good for a beginner. I disagree. It is not a good book for a person who wants to play bass lines tomorrow without learning to read music or putting in any serious practice time - that's true - but for a beginner who wants to play the bass as a serious instrument, it's great. If you put in an hour a day and a few hours a day on the weekends on your bass, you can progress quickly with this book. Not only that, but you will understand the theory behind what you are playing, and you will be better at reading music. I have not played an instrument or read music in 18 years (and I've never read music in the bass clef before), but this book has me progressing with both my playing and my theory after only 3 weeks with the instrument. You have to practice to successfully use this book, but you will get everything out of it that you put in!

I found this book to be very well done and a good resouce for the higher level beginner/intermediate player. Many people have written to note Rainey's odd playing style, and I would agree with them - it is probably actually best for the student to skip this section.

It is important to understand that Rainey wrote this method book much like the Arban's book for trumpet players - more exercises than you can fathom and very few bells and whisltes.

If you can take the dry, repetetive (and sometimes downright boring) studies, then there is no question you will be a better bassist.

This is a hard core introduction to all scales and arpegios you can think of, plus a few you couldn't have. If you master each exercise, with your metronome set at least to 80 bpm, you will get a LOT out of this book. It will take a lot of will power to turn from one page of exercises to next. It is more practise than music, most of the time. This is OK, as long as you are serious.

Unfortunately, there is no CD, but you probably wouldn't want to listen to it anyway.

Also, I'm going to go on a limb here, and say ignore the "right hand" technique section. Chuck has a very unorthodox way of plucking the strings.

It's not easy, but if Chuck Rainey says this will make me play better, I'm going to believe him:)

I've been playing piano for a number of years and recently decided to take up the Bass Guitar. I don't currently have the time or money to work with an instructor for learning the bass. I picked up Rainey's book and found it to be very good. I'm about half way through the book and am now looking to buy the next book in his series. I don't know if this book is good for someone who is 'brand-new' to music, in general. It could be. But, having already had a background in music but NO practical experience with the Bass, this book has proven to be very valuable. I personally recommend this book. The author has a good, straight forward way of teaching that I really enjoy.

Todd

This book will help those who already play another instrument (specifically the piano) or know the basics of music theory. But if you are a true beginner this book will not make it easy to start up. It's more of a practice book for improving chops.

Rainey has written a superbly balanced compilation of great importance for every bassist, no matter what their skill level. This world class player will keep you interested, as a beginner in the fundimentals, or, serious as a professional. Chuck Rainey's magic is no longer a secret. It will stay with you throughout your journey and show you what bass is all about.

Rainey has written a superbly balanced compilation of great importance for every bassist, no matter what their skill level. This world class player will keep you interested, as a beginner in the fundimentals, or, serious as a professional. Chuck Rainey's magic is no longer a secret. It will stay with you throughout your journey and show you what bass is all about.

This book provides a complete view of the regular concepts that any musician should be capable of performing at a moment's notice. Having gone through a complete music education program, I know that studies in all of the keys is an absolute requirement for a serious student. Music is built on the foundation of key structures, so every student must know them forwards, backwards and sideways. Rainey's material provides anyone with fundamental exercises in each area without being too redundant (okay ... many of the exercises are rewrites in a different key, but the function is still sound).

When this book first came out, I put it into my teaching reference book - later, I made it my required study material for all students on bass.

Because of this book, my students all have a clear understanding of playing in every key, and their chops are rapidly improved by the changes in playing style as they work through the various keys.

It's also a solid way to learn to read bass clef if you don't have the ability or you need to "bone up" on your reading again.

To this day - many years later - I still work on the material each week ... focusing on taking the notes and changing the way they are played. It's never boring unless you make it that way....

An excellent book for beginners and for players who want to say fresh with plenty of practice exercises. Learn from one of the great masters of bass playing. Highly recommended.

Standard notation only -- This may be a really good instruction book, but not if you can't read it. I don't read music, so this one gets tossed back. Why no TAB? (I can work out the notes, sure, but I've got 15 other instruction books, many of which have a ton of scale patterns that I'm probably never going to get to & finger-strengthening excercises are also in most of these books, so why keep this one?)

A beginner would probably enjoy something more fun/entertaining than scales & scale exercises, even if this is the best way to learn.

So if you are an absolute beginner & can't read music, maybe skip this one & look for a book that has: TABLATURE (notes written in an easy-to-figure-out manner). Possibly also look for some sort of CD- or DVD-included with whatever book you choose so you can hear what a particular piece is meant to sound like.

One other thing, & this has absolutely nothing to do with this book, which looks like a perfectly good book: generally speaking, I've found mel bay titles to be not-so-good, so if you have any choice--and often in music shops you don't--steer clear of mel bay publications.

(i'm sure that there are exceptions to the mel bay thing, but I haven't found any for beginner how-to music books).

If you are a serious bass player and/or can read music, or feel like learning to read music, then the other reviews for this book are much, much more appropriate than this one & no offense is intended.