Like most people, I didn’t have a clear direction after B2B. I picked up Hal Leonard’s complete Bass Method, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and a couple of courses on Talking Bass. B2B did an excellent job of covering 80% of Leonard’s book, SItSoM was more of a biography with some free sheet music, and the TB courses were very fleshed out and technical.
I didn’t really come away with any new skills or processes from these, so I ordered Paul Wolfes “What I Learned From James Jamerson” vol 1 and 2 a couple of weeks ago. They have been amazing books, and I plan on ordering the rest of the volumes as well as his blues bass book.
The books have staff and tablature notation and are broken down into devices (eg R-3-4-Ch is its own device) with their own chapter. Almost always there will be a brief summary on when and why a device is used, an 8-12 bar example where it is used, sometimes a stripped down version so you can clearly hear its effect, a template to practice the device, and a summation on why the device works and where it is best used. You can also get in touch with the author to download the hundreds of backing tracks and AV course material (I have not done so yet).
Not affiliated with the author; I’ve never even talked to him, but I’m having such great results with the books and they are actually enjoyable to read because you are playing 85% of the time that I wanted to share. I pop in every day or two if anyone has any questions I’ll try to answer them. Thanks for reading
Thanks for the tip @mpops1990
Have not heard of these.
I want to see one in person before ordering though, I have a nice shelf full of books I have not cracked yet.
@mpops1990
As far as I know his books are only available on Amazon.
I have recently bought several:
Deliberate Practice for Bass Guitar 2.0.
How to Play Bass Guitar in 50 Songs vol 1
Learning From James Jefferson vol 1
How to Play Blues Rock vol 1
Time and Groove for Bass Guitar
How to Play Bass 80-20 Device Method Module 1 - this is in beta and not generally available just yet.
I started with How to Play Bass Guitar in 50 Songs vol 1. However as I am a new bass player and only just about to start module 8 of B2B, my intention is to finish B2B first and then come back to these books. When I finish with B2B though, these books will definitely be where I will go to continue my bass education.
It seems like the author is intending to be quite prolific in writing several new books over the next year or too. My impression is that he has had a number of on-line courses which he no longer offers, but is distilling the material into a new series of books. For example the “How to Play Bass 80-20 Device Method” will be spread over several volumes. There will be fair bit of overlap between that series of books and others in the range, such as the Learning from James Jameson and the How to Play Blues Rock series.
After buying the first book I was sufficiently impressed to go out and buy the others. The author provides an online version for each book. You have to email him a copy of your amazon receipt to gain access to it. The online course includes pdf’s and tons of backing tracks for all of the examples, often in multiple keys and tempo. There are short video’s for each lesson as well.
I have emailed the author with a couple of questions and he was quick to respond. and seemed genuinely helpful. You can also post comments on the on-line version of the course similar to B2B, and he does respond to these comments.
I am a new bass player but find his approach interesting and he does provide a lot of material. My only real criticism so far is that for some of the lessons the descriptions of how to practice the exercises are repeated verbatim. These descriptions can be a couple of pages long, whereas he could say something like “Practice these exercise like you did for those in lesson 3”.
I did mention his books on a thread a few weeks ago but no one responded!
I highly recommend Ebassguitar…James has incredible teaching materials, all topics are present a 3 levels so you can complete a course at Level 1…comeback later for L2, has great community, alot…alot of different zoom calls for community, 90 day accelator classes…after Josh…this guy is the best instructor to become a badass intermediate bass player
His books are printed by Amazon so id assume this is the only place to get them.
I have recently bought Jameson volume 1 and groove and tempo and really like both books. The online versions just make sense as they allow for videos to be added to clarify what is being discribed.
I really like the concept of showing the things that went into great basslines and learning how to apply them to your own playing. As he says if you want to learn the lines note for note there are other books that already cover that.
In the past ive been hung up on trying to play songs exactly like the recording but the books are allowing me to play my own lines to songs which is probably more fun
I fully intend to buy more of the books in the future
That sounds familiar. I read his book excerpt online and this is exactly the kind of thing I like, describing what kinds of things to do for a particular style.
I hadn’t considered that. I just email him today for the web versions of the books. I have reached a slash chord section so I really need to hear its effect in the mix
