Books man, it´s all about the books...

[spikez]

Hi there people.

In my quest to become a more proficient musician , I decided to order some books. My question is, are this books good, bad or what. I´ve got here a list of books I´m almost decided to order cuz they look good, but I wanted to know your opinions and observations about them:

- Charlie Parker Omni Book in C -> I´m thinking about ordering it because someone in another thread concerning soloing recomended it.

- All cows eat grass -> This one is because I want to learn to read music, otherwise I wont be albe to read the Charlie Parker OB and I will continue to have this limitation.

- Bass Builders - Bass Improvisation -> What is your opinion about this one. I don´t have a clue about it´s qualitie(sp?).

- Building Walking Bass Lines by Ed FriedLand-> I think it´s good to have some solid roots on the walking lines for soloing, is this book good at providing them (the walking bass lines)?

- Slap Bass Lines -> Soo I can learn some more stuff to play with the slap technique.

This is the selection I made, but it can still be changed.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any replys.

PEACE ON EARTH.

[Bruce Lindfield]

I think it depends on what you want to do...?

The Charlie Parker Omnibook for example - is a good resource for the Jazz vernacular - the kind of things that Jazz horn players do in solos...

But it's not really a beginner's tool and personally, it would be way down my list for "general instruction" - file under : advanced Jazz players when you have mastered a lot of other basic skills...

So - first I think you need to have mastered reading to a high level, understand Jazz form, Jazz "theory",chord extension etc etc - or most of it will be lost on you...?

If you know nothing about Jazz at all - I would recommend a book like Ed Friedland's "Jazz Bass" first then work up to other things...?

Trying to play Charlie Parker solos on bass, as a first step - is completely the wrong way round - wrong approach...IMO!

I would also say that you need to be able to ask questions and a teacher will be invaluable in this instance - buy less books and save some money for lessons to deal with the issues that you will have, arising from reading books like these...

[spikez]

Thanks for the fast reply!

I think it´s very probable your right, so I will substitute the OB for that Ed FriedLand book you mentioned.
About the lessons issue, there is noway I can get lesson here, because there are no teachers in here so BassTalk is the only place I will be able to ask those questions to come...

Thanks again for the insight Bruce, looks like you saved me from lots of trouble

[tappingtrance]

Books are a great resource if you are looking for something specific to work on or fix.
but I will tell you [having many. many books] nothing works better than developing your ear through transposition - take a tune a week figure it out and each one will get easier - then get a teacher who can immediately observe your technique and clean up bad habits - books alone are marginally helpful if you don't know what you want.

Ditto on the Omnibook - the fingerings you need to figure out will exhaust you if you do not know the fingerboard - esp. since they really only sound decent up an octave - but, in time after you have really listented to Parker in his weavings, blues and rhythms - then go for it - learn to sing or hum one of his solos then get the book.

Cheers

[spikez]

What I´m looking for in books is to expand my music theory knowledge for composisition(sp?) and soloing (wich I have no idea how to do).
I would like to play jazz, but my most immediate objective is to compose (I´ve got a experemental/noise/prog project with a guitarist).
Thanks for the replys(again!).
Please continue with book discution if you like.

[spikez]

I remebered something!
What about some books about rythm? Do you know some good ones about that?
There is a fine looking book whose name I can´t remember that has a chapter about polyrithms, I remember thinking that it could be a nice thing to know about.

[kragen]

Originally Posted by spikez

- Bass Builders - Bass Improvisation -> What is your opinion about this one. I don´t have a clue about it´s quality

I bought that one a short while ago, It's a bit above my current level (only been playing a year or so), but looks good. It starts off with 8-10 pages of theory, and goes on to explain some good stuf via examples. I've only read about half of it, but once I've spent some time on my reading and spent some time on the theory at the start, it looks like it should be really useful.

[tZer]

For Slap technique look into Tony Oppenheim's book, "Slap It!" - I used it years ago and it took me from, "How the hell do they do that?" to "Check out my chops!" - and I mean literally after the first few hours with the book I started to sound like I actually knew what I was doing! It is an amazingly effective technique book.

http://www.slapit.com/

[Ed Fuqua]

I'm not going to say anything about teachers.

[spikez]

Good morning.

Thanks for all the priceless information you people have provided me.
And what about a good book to introduce me to walking bass lines,does anyone knows about a good one?

[MichaelScott]

Books + Teacher = Awesome.