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Classical exercise books for electric bass

P

peggynut

Jun 30, 2011
6
0
#1
Hello everyone,

I was just wondering which classical exercise books are good for electric bass technique-building?

Any cello studies or related studies do you guys recommend?

Can you share some name of the books or the writers' names?

:bassist:
 
#2
Do you mean technique oriented, or study pieces for Bass?
I used to work with books meant for Double Bass and applied the technique and exercises to electric bass. Sigi Busch's Jazz Bass Compendium help me a lot when developing 3 finger plucking technique and arpeggios.

If you're looking for Etudes for E-bass Mel bay has a great J.S bach for Eöectric Bass book.
 
#3
Hellbastard said:
Do you mean technique oriented, or study pieces for Bass?
I used to work with books meant for Double Bass and applied the technique and exercises to electric bass. Sigi Busch's Jazz Bass Compendium help me a lot when developing 3 finger plucking technique and arpeggios.

If you're looking for Etudes for E-bass Mel bay has a great J.S bach for Eöectric Bass book.
Click to expand...

I meant technique-oriented and also study pieces for electric bass because I believed that they both make you play better after...

:)
 
#5
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#7
Dotzauer Cello Etudes (113 Studies, start with book 1). It'll build your technique for sure, and there is plenty harmonic material there too. Can't go wrong with the Bach Cello Suites as already mentioned either, but I couldn't recommend the Dotzauer stuff strongly enough first. Make sure you use a metronome. The books are widely available and not expensive.
 
#13
The problem with playing cello music on the electric bass is that you need either a bass with 24 frets to play in the same range as a cello and cover the whole range or a 5 string so you can play everything an octave below(as written for bass). I mean, you could play simpler music with relative ease on a regular fender 4 string, but the range just really isn't there for the more advanced stuff like bach cello suites or whatnot.
 
#15
The 'cello studies can be a bit "inconvenient," as it were, due to the range issue cited and also because there are some extended 'cello part written in tenor clef, which, while not difficult in an of itself, is a bit annoying to me, having grown up on G clef and bass clef. Of course, the matter of articulation is also of concern, but if you can play the slurred passages with as many hammer-ons and pull-offs as you can muster, you can approximate that (and maybe develop your own style in the process). If you don't mind that, then International Music Company has published a good number of etudes for double bass, although their website seems to indicate that several I have are no longer in print.

Int'l Music Co. Home Page
 
#16
There are many cello, trombone, violin, double bass etude books out there with great exercises to build up your technique. You could go thru them all and find the ones that are appropriate for electric bass as I did or you could check out a book I put together. It contains some of the etudes that work well for bass and focus on different areas of your technique.

Check it out: Bass Chopz Accelerator - Builds Expert Bass Chops Fast!

Don't let the heavy infomercial approach on the site turn you away from a good book and DVD. I wrote the initial book and Alex Sampson cleaned it up a bit and is selling it for me.
 
#17
Art Araya said:
There are many cello, trombone, violin, double bass etude books out there with great exercises to build up your technique. You could go thru them all and find the ones that are appropriate for electric bass as I did or you could check out a book I put together with some etudes.

Check it out: Bass Chopz Accelerator - Builds Expert Bass Chops Fast!

Don't let the heavy infomercial approach on the site turn you away from a good book and DVD. I wrote the initial book and Alex Sampson cleaned it up a bit for me and is selling it for me.
Click to expand...

I am in istanbul Turkey and I would like to purchase the item without trying 21 days - is it still possible purchasing it with Global Saver $16.00 ?
 
#20
Audiophage said:
The problem with playing cello music on the electric bass is that you need either a bass with 24 frets to play in the same range as a cello and cover the whole range or a 5 string so you can play everything an octave below(as written for bass). I mean, you could play simpler music with relative ease on a regular fender 4 string, but the range just really isn't there for the more advanced stuff like bach cello suites or whatnot.
Click to expand...

True, but there are many places where changing octaves is easy and musically fine. And you can transpose to other keys. For instance the oft-played Prelude to Suite #1 in G really works better for bass in the key of A. You can use the open A string like a cellist would use their open G string. Prelude to Suite #3 in C works better (IMHO) in the key of D for many of the same reasons.

Some people can get sorta hung up on 'correctness' on these older pieces. The truth is that Bach very often borrowed his own pieces and phrases and changed them around to suite whatever his current needs were. There is a pretty good chance too that the cello suites were never meant to be performed but rather were created as etudes for students. Its all good music, enjoy it for all you can.
 

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