Jeff Berlin Bass Education Packages

[India_Sierra]

Jeff posted a new year's greeting last night. He's had quite a year because he has finally got 'Jack Songs' out and can look forward to new musical horizons. He seems to be utterly engrossed in practice now. I don't think I've ever seen him seeming to be so driven in terms of study. He says he hears more music than he can play and wants to improve.

Perhaps the most significant thing in his new year's message was the announcement that he has parted ways with John McCracken and that he isn't involved with the books/packages anymore. Jeff states that he has a new manager and three bookers lining up gigs. This is a significant change since I am assuming that the rights to the books remain with John McCracken and future sales and adminstration will be handled by him. Certainly, when people had issues with downloads or CD's in the past they were directed to John to resolve the problem.

Anyway, whilst this is a partnership that has existed for the better part of a decade I'm really excited to see what new opportunities are available to Jeff. When he gets out and plays, that's when the magic happens!

 

[bass12]

Jeff posted a new year's greeting last night. He's had quite a year because he has finally got 'Jack Songs' out and can look forward to new musical horizons. He seems to be utterly engrossed in practice now. I don't think I've ever seen him seeming to be so driven in terms of study. He says he hears more music than he can play and wants to improve.

Perhaps the most significant thing in his new year's message was the announcement that he has parted ways with John McCracken and that he isn't involved with the books/packages anymore. Jeff states that he has a new manager and three bookers lining up gigs. This is a significant change since I am assuming that the rights to the books remain with John McCracken and future sales and adminstration will be handled by him. Certainly, when people had issues with downloads or CD's in the past they were directed to John to resolve the problem.

Anyway, whilst this is a partnership that has existed for the better part of a decade I'm really excited to see what new opportunities are available to Jeff. When he gets out and plays, that's when the magic happens!

Do you have any idea whether or not Jeff still offers lessons via Skype? I haven’t been able to find any info regarding lessons online...

 

[India_Sierra]

Jeff has definitely done a few Skype lessons this year but I think most of them were probably in the first half, before Jack Songs wrapped. He may still be offering Skype lessons now so I'd recommend getting in touch and asking. My hunch is probably yes although he isn't actively advertising them at the moment.

 

[India_Sierra]

Update from Jeff via Facebook today:

 

[India_Sierra]

Jeff had mentioned in another post that he is now working on a new website which will presumably be all-new content etc. Since the Jeff Berlin Bass Education product now belongs to John McCracken I guess that there won't be any further updates on that front though 'Jack Songs' and the reading packages now belong to him as a product of JBBE, if I understand correctly.

So a change in business partners could now mean a new era of productivity for Jeff. He seems to have a lot of ideas and things he wants to do at the moment. He did recently take delivery of a 24 fret Cort Rithimic that he had requested be made so he could record certain classical pieces that would require it. As ever, the hardest part of getting anything done now is getting the funding to make the product in the first place so I will be watching closely.

 

[GastonD]

A slight detour here, but one of Jeff's premier students and exponent of his teaching method - Phil Mann - has a couple of book out there in which he approaches a similar material in a more step-by-step manner. After all, Jeff wrote the forward...
Based in Bass: Excavating the nuggets - chord tone study 2

 

[Bob_Ross]

Update from Jeff via Facebook today

Note to self: Never create a corporate entity whose name includes your own.

 

[India_Sierra]

Note to self: Never create a corporate entity whose name includes your own.

Yeah, it does put things in the weird position where Jeff no longer has sole use of his name. However, I understand that he still 'part owns' the reading packages and 'Jack Songs', he has just left the business entity that has majority ownership and distribution rights. I may be wrong but that's the conclusion I have reached after reading what has been said about the end of the business partnership.

Jeff will no doubt be involved in the creation of a new business entity to promote his playing and music and possibly, but not likely (I think), new bass education products. That's just what you do at that level, particularly in America where you have to self-assess your own tax liability. You make a company, you assign shares and ownership and keep your accounts. John McCracken remains in control of the 'Jeff Berlin Music Group' and, I believe, the 'Jeff Berlin Bass Education' names but I doubt there will be any new products coming from those entities. The actual product has always been driven by Jeff and the reading packages are available as downloads and now as a run of books.

Jeff has been in this sort of situation before. I couldn't believe that he left the Players School. He had done an amazing job of making a credible music school in an amazing place, but after leaving he still continued to work. This is a transitional phase and Jeff's music and playing appears to be moving back to being the focus of his efforts. I am really excited by this as I find Jeff's best work is done when he plays and makes music. There are plenty of great teaching materials but only one Jeff Berlin.



I note the above mention of 'chord tone concepts' by Phil Mann. It is an excellent book and I think it's possibly more useful to beginning readers than Jeff's packages. Hear me out! Phil's book is full of accompanying text explaining how the music on the page works. That is very useful to provide context.

Jeff's reading packages initially came with a set of Vimeo links. In those, Jeff gave a spoken introduction to the concepts explored in each lesson and he played the etude. When those videos disappeared from Vimeo (or if people didn't get the access link), I thought a lot of value was lost. The footage of Jeff playing the etude wasn't necessary beyond the first few lessons but the spoken introduction was. If you didn't have the spoken introduction you just wouldn't know what the lesson was about. Jeff said an alternative to this was to take the packages to a teacher and have them go through them with you until you started to learn to read. Whilst this is an ideal way of managing it, I think a lot of people buying those packages wanted to learn to read on their own rather than buying material that they'd still need the assistance of a teacher to decode. In the end, I think maybe the videos were restored. Certainly I think a PDF was made available for free on the website that explained some of what the packages were about, otherwise you wouldn't have known (basic stuff like how does a whole note differ from a quarter note? What is a tie? Etc).