Good book for a bad student?

spongebob1981

spongebob1981

Feb 8, 2009
52
3
#1
Greetings from Argentina!

I'm in my 30's, self taught, have enough gear and job+wife+choir = no time, the usual huh?

My knowledge of music theory and harmony are scarce, yet I find myself a lot of times freely improvising by singing solos or complex bass lines... but only singing them, when there's already a bass player laying the harmony.
When I pick up the bass I can't make up anything as complex and mainly stick to roots and maybe fifths. (wich are enough sometimes, but I feel I can put a lot more in there!)

So my guess is that I need some theory backing me up.

At the same time, as I stated in the title: I'm a terrible student. I've been at it for 10 years now and it's always the same: 2 hours session once or twice a month, instead of maybe 20 minutes per day wich I guess would be much more enriching.

Do you know any books of bass/music theory (of course, bass oriented would be best) that's oriented to short lessons?

Thanks a lot for reading and helping out fellow players!
 
#3
I just learned of a murga from a town next to mine called "Los vecinos re contentos", wich can be roughly translated as "The happy neighbours".

I keep imagining the faces of my own neighbors back then when we used my mom's garage to rehearse until God knows when... :D

A murga is both a music gender and the crew of mixed voices that sing a capella or accompanied, frequently by assorted percussion and in the rhythm of "candombe", typical of Uruguay.
Here's a sample: http://youtu.be/0vw5EpigY1k?t=1m50s

see ya!
 
#7
Spongebob, you already know where part of the problem is.
You need to find a way to practice constantly, 15/20 minutes every day. No matter what book/method you study, it needs to a daily effort, not a weekly.

If you have idle time in your schedule, like commuting or similar, make yourself some audio tracks with common chord progressions, I | ii |V7 | I | or I | vi | ii7 | V7 | or some minor i |iv|V7|i| and sing/hum the chord tones of the progressions; try first the root positions and then explore the inversions.
This will give you ideas for when you play your basslines to go beyond roots & 5ths, and also develop how to hear harmony.

I know if you do this for 1 week your basslines over these same progressions will improve much!
 

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