Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns by Nicolas Slonimsky

[bassist15]

I was reading that this book really helped Jaco discover alot . I was wondering if this is something I shoudl get. The reviews say you need to knwo alot of theory. Ive been playing for close to 2 years but im jsut not sure if I should get it. Does anyone own this book or know much abotu it?

[Dharmabum]

I use this book once or twice a week and it's helped me with unlocking a lot of new melodic ideas and also helped a lot with reading treble clef.

The best way to describe the book is that it is very mathematical in how it breaks down almost every concievable progression of intervals. I think that the "Thesaurus of Scales" part of the title can be slightly misleading as it is not a book like "The Bass Grimoire", which maps out, in a very straitforward fashion, tons of scales.

Theory wise, all you really need to know in order to play through it is basic reading knowledge of both clefs. The rhythms are pretty much the same throughout the book. However, I think the case with the book is that the more theory knowledge you have, the more you'll get out of it.

Also, as far as this book being an influence on my composing/writing, it's really helped me to develop great angular ideas.

And did anyone else find it cool of Slominsky to put the fairly negative quote by Schönberg on the back of the book?

[steveb98]

I've owned the book since I heard that John Coltrane used to use it for practice. It is a excellect source of ideas for compositon and improv, but for bass playing in general I'm not use would be that useful.

[Ed Fuqua]

It's like saying "I want to be a playwright, will a dictionary be of any use?" Well, yes, it will. But it's not going to help you write plays.

Playing music is about communicating intent; you communicate intent by being able to hear with enough clarity that you can identify and play what you are hearing (internally) so that everybody else can hear HOW and WHAT it is you are hearing. Once you can communciate that kind of intent with your current vocabulary, THEN it makes sense to try to deepen your vocabulary so that you can communicate with more specificity.

[kenlacam]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

It's like saying "I want to be a playwright, will a dictionary be of any use?" Well, yes, it will. But it's not going to help you write plays.

Playing music is about communicating intent; you communicate intent by being able to hear with enough clarity that you can identify and play what you are hearing (internally) so that everybody else can hear HOW and WHAT it is you are hearing. Once you can communciate that kind of intent with your current vocabulary, THEN it makes sense to try to deepen your vocabulary so that you can communicate with more specificity.

Excellent! That sums it up for me

[Bass Boy]

Originally Posted by kenlacam

Excellent! That sums it up for me

Ed has a way of doing that!