Interesting, so it’s not only me. No response to my inquiry as of today. I’ll play around with my iPad a little more as well.
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New Jeff Berlin Walking Bass book
- Thread starter India_Sierra
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Interesting, so it’s not only me. No response to my inquiry as of today. I’ll play around with my iPad a little more as well.
I spent about 45 minutes today piecing the whole book into a single pdf so it's only one file on my tablet. I've left the individual pages from printing purposes.
It's the little things that please you now.
It's the little things that please you now.
Just wanted to send an update on this.....John from JBMG has been great and has helped me sort my printing issue by sending along new .pdf files.
This is probably a dumb question - I would like to understand the rules used for writing the accidentals in the lessons (I haven't got to the Etudes yet so it may be different there). For example we see D# and Eb in the same piece (so it's the same key). Most lessons have examples like this and some have the even more confusing examples e.g. F## followed by G# and G nat (which looks like self inflicted complication to my untutored eye).
Is JB helping by getting us used to seeing things written differently or is there some set of rules that govern this?
Thanks for any help.
Neil
Is JB helping by getting us used to seeing things written differently or is there some set of rules that govern this?
Thanks for any help.
Neil
@NeilGB
No such thing as a dumb question! In this context I believe the convention is to use #’s when ascending and b’s when descending. For example, most will find that reciting the 12 chromatic notes aloud ascending that using sharps will be slightly easier than flats and the converse for descending. Of course this is just a sign that there’s work to be done to balance it out.
The doubles are a bit jarring but I think the idea is to get used to seeing them and translating them to the instrument equally as fast as any other note. Once again this takes time and practice to develop...like most things.
Hope this helps!
Erik
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I’m only on lesson 3, but it sounds like pure jazz to me so far. These lines sound like walking lines played slowly and like solo lines if played fast. I feel like I am starting to understand chromatic lines better already. It’s easy to analyse how he has written lines that approach the root or octave, the 3rd, and the 5th, and hear them that way too. Very nice.
The use of double flats and double sharps in the notation is unusual - I think Jeff is simply trying to make things a bit more challenging through this - but on the other hand, the more I read it, the more I get used to it. The author is allowed to write the notation however they wish, although in most music I read they wouldn’t use quite so many of these. But my view is that it is a legitimate if awkward choice, so may as well just go with it.
The use of double flats and double sharps in the notation is unusual - I think Jeff is simply trying to make things a bit more challenging through this - but on the other hand, the more I read it, the more I get used to it. The author is allowed to write the notation however they wish, although in most music I read they wouldn’t use quite so many of these. But my view is that it is a legitimate if awkward choice, so may as well just go with it.
Jeff will be spot on with these. If the key is (or is modulating to) G#, he will use F## as the leading tone, not G. The use of enharmonics appears in the first exercise of the Simandl method book...
I don't doubt he is spot on, he's always spot on. I trust him completely. However in many settings, writers avoid making music harder to read than it needs to be...even if it means writing things 'incorrectly'...perhaps it may be simplifying things too much, but many would use 'G' there in place of F double sharp...I'm quite happy to be doing it the correct way though.
- Oct 22, 2015
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- I am an affiliate for Ari Cap.
Ordered my print edition of Jeff Berlin Bass Mastery: A Complete Reading Course. Ink on paper is always appealing to me.
You won’t be disappointed. I’m on lesson 15 and it’s solid. Lesson 16 soon.
I’m really enjoying these packages as well so far. I’m doing a walking like a week and am on lesson 7 of package one for my reading. Trying to stick to doing a little bit each day. So far so good!
The walking book is great. It’s pure jazz, like I have said before. You’ll be getting a lot of good lines into your playing!
- Oct 22, 2015
- 21,163
- 256,766
- Disclosures
- I am an affiliate for Ari Cap.
Learned to read on saxophone a lifetime ago. When the cool kids asked me to join their band, I asked where's the music? And it seemed to me I'd learned to play music without the vaguest idea how to play music. 
Here in the present, I'm on my second (plus) run with Ari Cap's Music Theory for the Bass Player cohort as a both a participant and as an invited coach.
What it appears now is reading opens the way to Bach. Bach, who knows more about music, and more about my instrument, than I may ever grok. It feel natural to me as a bass player to want to know Bach. It is in fact Jeff who I first heard play Bach, and something in me said this is achievable.
My side project (apart from reading, and Jeff's walking bass lines) is Bass Fretboard Basics by Paul Farnen. That, and the walking bass lines, is what's kept me busy between the conclusion of the 2020 MTftBP cohort and the 2021 cohort. Paul was an extraordinary teacher, and still catching up to him
Here in the present, I'm on my second (plus) run with Ari Cap's Music Theory for the Bass Player cohort as a both a participant and as an invited coach. What it appears now is reading opens the way to Bach. Bach, who knows more about music, and more about my instrument, than I may ever grok. It feel natural to me as a bass player to want to know Bach. It is in fact Jeff who I first heard play Bach, and something in me said this is achievable.
My side project (apart from reading, and Jeff's walking bass lines) is Bass Fretboard Basics by Paul Farnen. That, and the walking bass lines, is what's kept me busy between the conclusion of the 2020 MTftBP cohort and the 2021 cohort. Paul was an extraordinary teacher, and still catching up to him
Musicians Institute puts out some great books! I’d never come across Bass Fretboard Basics, or Paul Farnen, but it seems like pretty awesome book based on the index. I’m going to keep it on my radar. Did you take lessons with him @Morrighan ?
- Oct 22, 2015
- 21,163
- 256,766
- Disclosures
- I am an affiliate for Ari Cap.
Paul was a teacher at Musician's Institute when I was a student there in 1981. Put my bass under my bed a few years later as I saw to life and all.
Cool! I didn’t realize that you had studied there. Bass ALWAYS has its way of finding us.
- Oct 22, 2015
- 21,163
- 256,766
- Disclosures
- I am an affiliate for Ari Cap.
One of the lasting lessons from MI is I became innured to celebrity. It's probably one of the more helpful life skills I've learned!
I've put down Jeff's walking bass study for a bit as Music Theory for the Bass Player holds my full attention again.
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Thank goodness it is spiral bound. Based on his FB page it seems he’s giving it to folks who ordered the digital package already, don’t quote me on that though.
