book with basic bass lines from many genres?

[maxagin]

Hi everyone,

I have been learning the bass guitar for a few months now. I am following the Hal Leonard method book and I am happy with it.

However, I would like to start wetting my feet in the huge variety of bass lines across genres -- blues, r&b, all the different latin rhythms, jazz, etc... Is there a book I can buy which will give me a "sample" of each of these? I am not looking for complete, fleshed out songs (such as those in fake books); instead, I am looking for a compilation of representative bass lines (perhaps a 5-6 per genre) for many different genres.

Does such a thing exist? Searching this forum, I have come across Ed Friedland's "specialty" books (one on r&b, another on blues, etc), but I am not (yet) looking for such great depth. Is there a single book I can get which will allow me to get my feet wet in multiple genres?

Thanks in advance for any help

max

[Infernal Affair]

Bass Guitar for Dummies has phrases and such from a lot of different genres plus a lot of other good info. That and the Hal Leonard book are the two books I wish I had when starting out. Great books.

[mantelclock]

The Berklee Practice Method - Bass by Rich Appleman, John Repucci is an excellent starting point for what you're looking for. The tunes are pretty cool and the accompanying CD gives you a band to practice with. And it's not expensive.

[Parabolic Box]

Maybe the Bass Tab White Pages.

[OtterOnBass]

Check out ActiveBass.com
In the lessons section, there are tons of basslines from different genres.

[HaVIC5]

Sean Malone's Dictionary of Bass Grooves is probably the book that you're looking for. It covers pretty much every popular genre.

[Beast]

Bass Bible

Huge book, tons of grooves. Not just good for different musical styles, but also gives you a look into different players' styles.

[DudeistMonk]

I just bought 2 bass books the other day, the far better of the two was "The Versatile Bassist" by Dave Overthrow...I'm halfway through it but its exactly what you are asking for and some more for $20...

The first 5 chapters or so are theory, chords and scales (there is a really handy chart for matching scales to chords), the rest is "here is a line in the style of John Entwistle", "here is a line in the style of brick house" ext. and all the lines are the artists bass lines with a few notes changed here and there. They also layout chord progressions and talk about what defines each genre. The classic rock section alone has like 16 different lines, and the band in on the CD sounds good, and looking through the book the last few chapters start to get a little crazier... playing chords, tapping, lines inspired by Jaco and Wooten.

I just finished the raggae/ska section page 50 of 94 and its already worth the 20 bucks.

-Chris

[Bassist4Life]

Originally Posted by Beast

Bass Bible

Huge book, tons of grooves. Not just good for different musical styles, but also gives you a look into different players' styles.

I have that book! It's pretty nice. There are a lotta' recognizable bass lines in that book, but they're not labeled by song title. You'll know them when you play them.

[fretster]

There are a zillion bass books out there, usually around $20. Less if you get them on ebay from an individual. Instead of finding one book that covers all styles, get a bunch of books, and work through them. I'm loving Oscar Stagnaro's Latin Slap book right now. If it was combined with blues, rock, bluegrass, there wouldn't be nearly enough info on any one topic!

Excellent books: Slap It, Building Jazz Bass Lines by Ron Carter, and the Latin Slap book mentioned above.

The Aebersold series is also great, especially when you get to improvisation.

[manicbassman]

Originally Posted by Parabolic Box

Maybe the Bass Tab White Pages.

+1 although it is a little dated now

[bburk]

Originally Posted by Beast

Bass Bible

Huge book, tons of grooves. Not just good for different musical styles, but also gives you a look into different players' styles.

Another vote for the Bass Bible. Good book, more styles than you can shake a stick at. Actually, a lot of loose transcriptions of famous grooves too, None of them are named though so you don't know it until you hear it.

edit: also Friedland also has a 'styles' book called Bass Grooves which is pretty good too. But from what you describe, the Bass Bible sounds ideal.

[maxagin]

Hi guys

Thank you for being so amazingly helpful. I will look into the books you suggested.

max

[ThunderLizard]

The Bass Bible by Paul Westwood. It's a lifes worth of theory, chops and cool grooves.
Sometimes I listen to it in the car instead of a the radio.

[mambo4]

Originally Posted by Beast

Bass Bible
Huge book, tons of grooves. Not just good for different musical styles, but also gives you a look into different players' styles.

+1 on that.