Given your interest in blues and jazz, I would recommend Ed Friedland's Building Walking Bass Lines. It should come with either a CD or a link to download the contents of one.
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Is this sequence of dominant notes a blues?
- Thread starter Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati
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Blues Bass by Ed Friedland is a good place to start learning the blues. And since a good deal of the jazz created during the 60's is blues based, it should allow you to eventually transition towards jazz.
In my own musical journey, I was pretty obsessed with learning jazz right away, and I struggled. A good friend of my said, "Forget all that Jaco Pastorious stuff and learn to play the blues." It was some of the best musical advice I've ever gotten. So I did that, and joined a pretty good blues band, which was my first band. I was lucky to have an excellent drummer who really helped me with my time and creating a pocket, etc. After that, I played in a Top 40 band, an Alternative Rock band and a couple others.
By the time I started with my current jazz trio I had been playing for about 3 years, but I was still a novice. It took a while for me to understand how to execute the form. I was ok at it, but it was hard. Even Miles Davis had considered quitting jazz, because he said it was really difficult. But I stuck with it and my bandmates were very patient. Jazz is fun now, but it wasn't for a long time.
Music takes a lot of effort, but you have to love the effort to be any good at it. I had a really good bass instructor and if I had tried to teach myself all the things that form the foundation of music, I don't think I'd have made it. I recommend you look into getting a good teacher. Books can't help you when you have questions.
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I'd considered recommending Ed's Walking Bass book, but I really think that should come later. Blues is the foundation of all that and I think he should understand that first.
Just my opinion though.
That's a great idea. I totally agree that it would be better to tackle Blues Bass first.
Now it's not just your opinion; it's mine too.
A book on walking bass is, in my opinion, not going to do much for your theory basics. My recommendation for that would be something like Edly's Music Theory For Practical People: [This invalid link has been removed] It's thorough but very easy to follow and it tackles blues early on. Once you have the basics down it's hard to beat Mark Levine's Jazz Theory: The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine | Sher Music Co.
Oh, I completely agree. Most of my posts in this thread have tried to persuade O.P. to study some basic music theory, but for reasons I don't completely understand he seems averse to this. He seemed to want a book or other resource that skipped the basic stuff and went directly to his specific interests in blues and jazz. I only suggested the walking-bass book as the best example I could think of that did what he wanted. @Spin Doctor then suggested a different book that is somewhat less advanced, but still not Music Theory 101. I still think that the best recommendation is something that covers Music Theory 101, like the Edly book you suggested.
Sorry, I missed the wanting to skip the theory 101 part. I understand the recommendations better now.
Sorry, I missed the wanting to skip the theory 101 part. I understand the recommendations better now.
My thing is most people who want to get into jazz try to understand/get into it way before they are ready. Mark Levine has a great book, but for someone to try to decipher that with no prior experience with even the simplest music theory, it's a waste of time.
But there's no reason he can't learn music theory and blues simultaneously. You don't have to skip it, but he needs to pick material that is at the correct level.
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Yeah, I picked up on his thinking he can skip knowing theory and get into jazz. It's fine to want stuff in your head, but the reality is, it's not gonna happen.
I totally agree, and just to be clear, I would not recommend Mark Levine's book to someone until that person had a grasp of some basic theory. The thing is, it really doesn't take much of that basic theory to get onto the next level. But people don't know, until they know - and they can then kick themselves for not learning these basics earlier (I'm still kicking myself for that!).
As a working but self-taught pro bassist back in the day, I struggled to “backfill” the theory I needed to survive (and gig full-time). I found that studying a keyboard was illuminating vs trying to figure out key signatures, chord structure, inversions, etc. on a bass. …just a thought for when OP gets around to “Theory 101”. I still don’t “play” keys, but found they were “key” to the visualization of theory, chord structure in particular. Even a little mini-keyboard will do .
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Two books that I have that go through the blues (from a jazz perspective) and then jazz harmony in general:
The Blues Scales by Dan Greenblatt
The Jazz Music Book by Mark Levine
The Blues Scales by Dan Greenblatt
The Jazz Music Book by Mark Levine
I have the Blues Scale book. It's pretty good. Ed Fuqua is the bassist on the recordings.
This is really useful for me. Six months in, I'm just all over the road ... some pop, some blues, scales work. Bought Levine's Jazz Music Book and
Thanks, Spin Doctor. This is really useful and you've got me thinking about focus as well. Six months into finally practicing regularly, I find I'm just all over the road ... some pop, some blues, scales, intervals, theory work, with a tiny bit of jazz - mimicking simpler lines. The goal is laid-back jazz combo work. Bought Levine's Jazz Music Book and found I'm not nearly ready for it. I think I'll set it aside and work on the blues.
