Customer Reviews

Funk Bass (Bass Builders)

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

 

 

When I bought "Funk Bass" I thought it was gonna be just another book with a couple of cool licks and a couple of good exercises and another badly recorded cd, but I was pleasantly surprised.

First of all, I recognised myself completely in the introduction where Mr. Liebman describes bad exercise-habits, so I was immediately motivated to do every exercise in this book.

Also, the way this book is written, it's almost like there's actually someone sitting next to you and encouraging you to continue to practice. The exercises are really helpful and the licks in chapter 5 and 6 really groove. The cd is good and because of the way it's recorded you can mute the bass-guitar or the drums by turning the balance completely to the left or the right speaker. There's also a lot of useful information about effects and a great discography.

I think that I'm a much better bass-player after practicing with this book for a couple of months. So if you want to be a better (funk-)bassplayer: buy this book and follow the instructions step by step.

For an aspiring bassist wanting to slap like Bill Dickens and Stanley Clarke, this book is what you need. Whether just a beginner or a 3-year veteran, this book will refine you technique and give you some awesome licks and grooves on paper and CD to practice. This book provides a clear transition from one level of skill to the next, as well as includes cool bonus' like a Suggested Discography and an Equipment section.

I hate to say it, but these grooves are so cool I could just listen to the CD on repeat!

This book was written very well, and has very important things in it. FUNK BASS made me five times better the bass player I was. For those beginners, I recommend this book to you, for FUN BASS and FUNK BASS. This book contains good slapping and popping exercise, cool bass techniques, good advice, a discography, what you need, cool basic patterns, "groovy" bass lines, and much more. This was an achievement. I keep turning back to this book! A must-have for any bass player!

I expected funk bass handbook - I am dissapointed. It is slap bass handbook.
If you are interested in slap handbook it may be a good book. If you expect general funk handbook - don't buy. Funk started much earlier than slap style become popular. Its a pity it not covers important funk styles like New Orlean Funk, Jazz-Funk of sixties or Tower of Power 16th note style. Funk bass is much more than slapping and popping.

I bought this book about 8 years ago I have been playing for about 14 and I tell ya this book has inspired me in many ways . Its a blast to play along with, the riffs are very good and CD is also well arranged .
You get the feeling that Jon Liebman the author put some passion into this book and thank him for doing so .It helped become a better bass player and still is .Out of all the countless books I have laying around this is my fav .

This book has some great Funk grooves, but the CD is horribly composed.
The CD omits chapters 3 & 4, which contain fantastic grooves, but no way to get a sample. It only covers chapters 5 & 6.
The grooves are not separated individually, but rather, in large groups, so you can't just go to the groove you want, but have to scan.
I can't believe this great teacher and player could have released such an ill-conceived CD tool.
Although he is a great player, he uses some sort of Chorus pedal or something with the CD, so his tone ends-up sounding cheesy. He's a great player that didn't need any effects to record the samples.
Sorry to be so harsh, but I really could have used an easier to navigate the CD.
Take a look at Bass Guitar for Dummies by Patrick Pfeiffer. Really well-designed CD, although no depth of Funk like Liebman's.

I bought this book back in 1996 when I'd been playing bass for around a year or so. My instructor didn't show me anything about slapping and preferred to teach me the fundamentals of bass playing. I taught myself how to slap out of this book and this book alone. The recorded exercises cover chapters 5 and 6 exclusively. Everything from chapters 1 through 4 are just basic rhythms applied to slap techniques. I honestly don't understand why anyone would give this book anything less than 5 stars. I read and played through this book several times (mainly chapters 5 and 6) with my goal set at playing each exercise exactly how it sounds on the tape/CD. The exercises in chapters 5 and 6 are especially fun and challenging to pull off.

As a bass instructor for the past 10 years, whenever a student expresses interest in learning how to slap, this is the ONLY book I recommend to them.

Hm. It's Okay. Very repetitive... if they had given a couple bars, in a key, then you just went about it the rest of the way for the other keys, you'd be better off. the book is filled with sooo many pages of the same exercises in different keys. This is not supposed to be a music reader book, nor is it supposed to be a "you VILL memorize these via muscle memory or else" book... it's supposed to be a funk bass book, for technique. I'd have probably been better off getting something else. No, definitely. But to each his/her own. I dont recommend this though. I never even cracked the CD.. still in the book unused. It would pain me to listen to the same exercises over and over all the way up and down the fretboard.