Book: Bass Fitness To Buy or Not To Buy?

[blankstare77]

^^?

I need to build my chops. I plan to compliment this book with the single string studies as well as an etude book.

[Erick Lam]

Personnally, I think most exercises are a waste of time. Want to build your chops? Get Charlie Parker's Omnibook. It's not made for bass. If you can bring those lines at a good tempo, you'll have chops.

[smeet]

Single string studies is great to learn your fingerboard.
Bass fitness is good to limber up your fingers and get them moving fast but it is very very very non-musical so I don't like it much any more. Better to get your technique going in the service of music. Play arpeggios, scales, etc.

[blankstare77]

Originally Posted by Erick Lam

Personnally, I think most exercises are a waste of time. Want to build your chops? Get Charlie Parker's Omnibook. It's not made for bass. If you can bring those lines at a good tempo, you'll have chops.

What is the Omnibook?

What I was planning on doing is getting great at learning the fingerboard notes, then I'd build my chops relatively (not religiously), and then I'd play etude books/music.

[blankstare77]

Originally Posted by smeet

Single string studies is great to learn your fingerboard.
Bass fitness is good to limber up your fingers and get them moving fast but it is very very very non-musical so I don't like it much any more. Better to get your technique going in the service of music. Play arpeggios, scales, etc.

EXACTLY what I was planning to do!

Even though things that are unmusical are no fun, I'm determined to get the technique out of the way so I CAN make the music.

[Erick Lam]

Charlie Parker's Omnibook for C instruments.

It would be too overwhelming for you if you don't know your fingerboard at all. It's transcriptions of Charlie Parker's solos (saxophone). Written in treble clef, no tabs.

A problem with exercices is they are repetitive, the same thing over and over up and down the neck. It loosens your fingers but don't learn anything. Playing real music will loosen your fingers just the same except it doesn't follow a pattern so depending or your reading level or ability to transcribe, it only takes a little longer to figure out. Charlie Parker's book is excellent since it has nothing to do with bass. There are no pattern and it's full of weird fingering.

The best thing to do is transcribe music. Figure it out and write it down in standard notation.

[avid]

Originally Posted by Erick Lam

Charlie Parker's Omnibook for C instruments.

Why not for E flat instruments?

[Erick Lam]

Originally Posted by avid

Why not for E flat instruments?

I like blue.

[Basshammer]

I like the Bass Fitness book, but it really doesn't need to be a whole book. You could easily make up similar exercises yourself after learning just a few from the book. It's all finger-independence type stuff. Good for the hands, but very non-musical as the others mentioned above.