Patrick Pfeiffer - Bass Guitar Exercises for Dummies

Bass Guitar Exercises For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .

Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931187

ISBN 978-1-119-70011-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-74897-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-74899-1 (ebk)

Patrick Pfeiffer has done it again, and this time he has created a comprehensive and complete bass studies book for all levels of bassists.

Bass Guitar Exercises For Dummies is a masterwork that presents not only what to practice but how to practice and includes an extensive amount of audio examples that you can play along with.

Youll be able to practice scales, arpeggios, progressions, and grooves, all of which are the building blocks of a great bassist.

This book shows you how to incorporate these techniques and exercises into your own playing, and as a result, youll make better music.

Bass Guitar Exercises For Dummies is an invaluable resource for all bassists and should be in every bassists library regardless of their level of ability. I wish I had this book 40 years ago!

Thank you, Patrick, for the fine work.

Mark Egan

1. Chapter 2

Lay down the groove with tight, focused notes and an irresistible feel. Flawlessly navigate the turbulent sea of rhythm and harmony. Ride the deep, articulate, sonorous sound waves of your bass guitar and do it all with confidence, skill, grace, and joy.

What if a book comes along that makes you a better bass player no matter your present level and streamlines your practice routine with efficient and effective exercises that cover all musical aspects of bass playing, including a multitude of techniques in all styles of music?

This is that book. Bass Guitar Exercises For Dummies bridges knowing and doing, or, in the case of musicians, theory and playing. Sure, its important to memorize certain rules, like which scales to use with which chords, but it wont do you any good unless you have the scales firmly embedded in your muscle memory, with your hands trained to reach automatically for the proper move.

Its also important to develop muscle memory to play arpeggios, rhythms, grooves, and melodies, and to establish the wherewithal to apply them to different styles. You find exercises in this book to help you smooth your shifts, your string crossings, your attack, and your dynamics exercises that dont sound like exercises at all because theyre written as musical pieces. After all, you want to play music.

The exercises in Bass Guitar Exercises For Dummies go far beyond the conventional practicing of scales, arpeggios, and other etudes. These exercises are bass-specific. Playing scales straight up and down may be great for other instruments, but for bass players it doesnt suffice. As a bassist youre also responsible for rhythm and groove; thus, the scales in Bass Guitar Exercises For Dummies resolve harmonically as well as rhythmically. In fact, many of the scale exercises in this book segue straight into grooves that you can use in real songs.

All the exercises are tried and true, truly the best stuff on earth. You can improve your playing literally within days just by doing the exercises. Of course, I dont expect you to play all 227 or so etudes in one day! I group the exercises so that several address each issue, but in slightly different ways. For example, you get to work all four fingers of your fretting hand whether youre practicing permutations or shifting.

Some exercises are short only a measure or two and some are quite lengthy, sometimes two pages. I encourage you to transpose each exercise into all keys, even if the exercise is presented in only one. The bass is symmetrical; therefore, your fingering doesnt change, which makes transposing the music an easy task.

At the end of this book you find a list of techniques, including the order in which to practice them. This is definitely not a book you need to read from front to back, in chronological order. In fact, after you read this introduction, I recommend that you skip to the last chapter to see why its worth practicing the exercises in Bass Guitar Exercises For Dummies. There you find examples of exercises applied to famous bass-heavy music, and I assure you, youll recognize at least some of these songs.

I dont delve into theory very deeply. If you want to know more about a certain scale, groove, or musical style, you may want to look into