Michael Moore's book

bassgeek · #1 01-23-2002, 10:12 AM

I was flipping through an old Bass Player magazine recently, and came across a review of a Michael Moore Book entitled "Melodic Playing in the Thumb Position". Is anyone familiar with this book? How does it compare to Rufus Reid's "Evolving Upward"? Thanks.

Robert Sabin · #2 02-09-2002, 01:51 AM

The book is actually a combination of one of Michael's earlier books "improvising in the thumb position" and a second volume, put together. This approach was extremely helpfull to me in terms of expanding my concept of the thumb position, as well as his unique approaches to harmony and melody. His fingering system really liberates the hand, and gives the player a much greater freedom. The harmonic concepts are original, and bring an at times complicated subject back down to earth.

And except for the occasional typo (the fault of Advance music, I assure you, and not MM, or the gentleman who is credited with the transcriptions) the book is a must read for those interested in the upper registers, or greater insights into Michael's playing. I believe Lemur sells it also.

uptonbass · #3 09-22-2006, 05:12 PM

Old thread re-hash!!!! Who is the publisher of Michaels Books?

Andy Allen · #4 09-22-2006, 09:58 PM

I mentioned this in the other thread, but it's worth repeating.

I've been getting a lot out of working through MM's TP book. It has it's faults - typos as mentioned, not the greatest layout, and the CD, while providing examples of the exercises, is not produced in a manner that specifically helps practicing with them.

But despite these annoyances, the information, and MM's general system, have been very useful to me to give me both a structure for practicing, and a springboard from which to launch my own soloing. As well as generating a thumb position practice schedule I particularly wanted to get away from 'chasing the roots' in my soloing. MM's book is not a cure-all for this by any means, but it's got me started on a good path in the direction I wanted to go. Now it's all down to me - I can't blame the book for my general incompetence.

Andy

PS: I bought my copy from Jazzbooks.com