Self taught bass player, think its time for book

[rhcpflea]

Well I had always wanted to play a bass, but money was always a little tight and i wasn;t sure which one to buy and stuff, but about 4 months ago my friend lent me his bass (which I still have to this day, ibanez gsr 190, one of the starters) cuz he plays guitar now. Well I feel that im pretty good for only playing 4 months, compared to alot of kids whove played longer then me yet are worse. I love jamming to blues (I never did really like the music, but its actually really fun just playin the scales and everything sounding perfect)and playing covers. Problem is, thats about all I do. I want to learn all the other things about bass, proper technique, other scales, and all the other stuff.


Basically IM wondering whats a good book from your experience that would help me become a better bassist/learn the necessities

[Deacon_Blues]

The best thing would be to get a teacher. If that's not an option, you could try a book instead. There have been several threads about good books here - do a search and see what you find.

Never forget to listen to all kinds of music. Analyze the bass lines and try to copy them. There are also lots of good exercises that are very useful for both left and right hand technique. I described an exercise called the "spider" a while ago here, which I think is very useful. I got it from a bass teacher I had a few years back, who obviously got it from an instruction video by John Patitucci. (I would actually prefer a video instead of a book, you can see the finger movements better and John P's videos seem very good).

EDIT: And learn music theory. It's veeery useful.