As a professional bass player for over 30 years, I didn't think I had much to learn from Bass EncycloMedia. Boy, was I wrong! This book is filled with practical and highly musical techniques and information that will benefit bass players of any style and ability level, especially those who have passed beyond the "beginner" stage. The BEM is written the way most bass players think.....visually instead of in staff notation. This is a great addition to the library of every bass player - I am very impressed! - Dr. Robert A. Cutietta, Dean - The Thornton School of Music - The University of Southern California.
PREFACE
Congratulations! Your desire to learn, willingness to practice and ability to perform has led you to Bass EncycloMedia - as essential as your instrument.
Bass EncycloMedia is an "encyclopedic volume of bass knowledge that is presented in a methodical order". Here's what I mean. An "encyclopedia" is a book that is used to reference "out of order" information. To locate one of an encyclopedia's many "out of order" ideas, it is organized alphabetically. In contrast, a "method" is a "how to book" which present its "in order" ideas in a continuous analogue flow. To locate one of a method's many "in order" ideas, it has an "index" which is arranged alphabetically. A method succeeds because it has no gaps between its ideas - it is sequential. Therefore, since Bass EncycloMedia is a "method that you can reference", I combined "encyclopedia" with "method" to create "encyclomedia".
Bass EncycloMedia - which has evolved over four decades of fretboard study - continues to be the most comprehensive presentation of musical thought as it is applied to the bass fretboard. Its continued development has been brought about by the unending questions of students, who in effect, have taught me what they need to know! And guess what? The questions have not ended. In fact, those unending thoughts and ideas brings the BEM into the 21st Century. Thank you one and all!
Bass EncycloMedia is a most profound revelation! I am certain that this book - written with cool analysis and prophetic vision - will have a very significant effect on any player who studies it. It is an important contribution to those thinking bass. - Marshall "Rock" Jones, Mega Bass Master for the Ohio Players.
The FastTable (table of contents) makes locating any chord, scale, arpeggio, song or important idea - fast and easy - and an additional Indexmakes their location even faster and easier.
There are 42 songs in Bass EncycloMedia, and they are presented in a progressive order from simple to complex. They are also arranged alphabetically for quick location. And now with GEM Jam you can play-along with Bass EncycloMedia and have some real fun!
Congratulations once again, you are taking a very important step in your development as a musician playing the bass!
Guitar EncycloMedia contains an amazing wealth of material for guitarists of any level. There is enough information in this book to provide a lifetime of learning and experimentation. Mike, thank you for sharing your knowledge! - Charles Michael Brotman, Hawaii's First Grammy award winning producer and guitarist, Palm Records.
FOREWARD
I have written Bass EncycloMedia to answer the question:
What do I play the second time through a song? In other words, what do I play when I "improvize"?
There are many individual books that show chord, scale and arpeggio fingerings, and other books that teach you how to read staff notation and tab, so that you may play a song through the first time. However, these books do not explain what to play when only a chord symbol is given.
Bass EncycloMedia thoroughly explains in one volume, how chords, scales and arpeggios combine with one another, enabling you to improvize something uniquely different the second time through a song.
Bass EncycloMedia is not a faddish "flash in the pan" or some novelty approach illustrating the latest "hot licks" - but rather the most complete reference of bass knowledge available, containing all chords, scales and arpeggios necessary to perform any song in any style - and in any key!
Bass EncycloMedia will always be timely.
Words can not express my appreciation for this great work of art you have created. I have spent most of my life trying to figure out the guitar and have exhausted a ton of books only to become more confused! At last, Guitar Encyclomedia has come to save me! Now the challenge of learning guitar has again become fun and extremely rewarding. With such a simple, systematic, and visual approach to learning the guitar - my book search is over! There is no need to seek anything else. It is all right here in the GEM. I now turn every guitar player (and bass player) I know on to your books. Thanks so much for your gift to guitarists everywhere! - Ed Schaefer, Master luthier of fine handcrafted archtop Schaefer Guitars.
INTRO
Yes! You're a bass player, but you're much more than just a bass player, you're a musician, thinking and speaking the language of music - that you then apply to the bass, thus becoming a student of the bass.
Bass EncycloMedia is based on the premise that music is a language and that if you knew the music alphabet of letters and tone numbers on your bass, you could spell and therefore play any chord, scale, arpeggio or song.
So, where does music begin? Like most languages, with an alphabet. Now, you've known the English alphabet most of your life, but, do you know all the words in the dictionary? We all know the answer to that question. However, if we ask, do you know every letter in the dictionary? The answer is yes! So the question becomes, if you know every letter in the dictionary, why don't you know every word? The simple answer is, because you don't know how to spell them.
On your first day of school they didn't give you a book of Shakespeare and a dictionary and say go home you're finished. You understand that's absurd. However, that's what you're trying to do with the bass. You say, I want to play this song. Then you open a song book, see the first chord, find it in your chord dictionary, try to finger it and then move on to the next chord. You will never learn bass that way.
Remember the first grade? You memorized a list of vocabulary words that you could spell. This enabled you to read a story that contained those words. Then you learned a new list of words, read a new story, a new list, a new story, and so on. Until finally, years later, you could finally read that book of Shakespeare. That's how you must understand the language of music. As chords, scales and arpeggios that you can spell - which becomes your vocabulary.
With his impressive book - Guitar EncycloMedia - Mike Overly thoroughly explains all the musical terms, concepts and ideas you run across as a guitarist - scales, intervals, arpeggios, chords, circle of 5ths, etc... the list is endless. It is one of the most complete reference books I have come across, equally addressing beginners and advanced players alike. The strength of the GEM lies in it's timeless topics, meaning, you can look up a topic whenever you want to learn more about it, rather than trying to study the entire book in one sitting. - which would really be a challenge because it contains over 300 pages - a huge amount of information! Gunharth Randolf - Founder of www.iBreathemusic.com.
Pythagoras told us that if we take a string length and divide the string in half the frequency is doubled and the octave is created. So from the nut to the bridge is one string length and the 12th fret divides the string in half. Now you have 12 frets, one for each of the 12 pitches in one octave.
While it's true there are 12 pitches in one octave, there are only 7 natural letters in the music alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F, G and these 7 letters can be placed horizontally on every string. Most bassists start with a vertical view of the fretboard, however, by not seeing the letters and tones horizontally they miss the concept of chord shapes, which are vertical groupings of the horizontal letters and tones. Trying to remember thousands of chord block diagrams (fragments) by memorizing finger patterns will never work. You learn and remember chords as well as scales and arpeggios by "spelling" them.
Going a step further, the letters of the C Major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B can be thought of as tone numbers (scale degrees). So instead of "do-re-mi", which in the key of "C major" is C, D, E we can give those letters tone number names: 1, 2, 3. Now you can spell in tone numbers as well as in letters. This is very important because now we have two ways to think about the bass, as tone numbers and those tone numbers as letters, in any key. Okay, we now understand that music is a language expressed as an alphabet of letters and tone numbers.
Now, getting back to my first analogy, I said that if you knew all the letters of the alphabet it would be possible to spell all the words in the dictionary. So now I'll assume that you know the musical alphabet of 7 letters in one octaveon the bass fretboard. Do you know the song Happy Birthday? Of course you do! Okay, can you play it? No, why? Because you don't know how to spell it. That's the concept. If you know how to spell a song you can easily play it. In fact, you can play anything you know how to spell (chord, scale arpeggio or song). So, let's spell the first stanza of Happy Birthday in the key of C major: G, G, A, G, C, B. Now play that on every string.
Congratulations and thank you very much for the wonderful Bass EncycloMedia. You are truly an extraordinary teacher! - Brian Tracy - America's foremost authority on developing peak performance and individual success achievement and Founder of Brian Tracy International.
Bass EncycloMedia teaches you how to see the bass in a very simple way, as letters and tones numbers on the fretboard, which will enable you to play what you can spell. Now, what do you know how to spell? In other words, how big is your vocabulary?
No matter what song you want to play, if you have the vocabulary you'll be able to play that song. However, you must have an order, a system, a method to get through the complex vocabulary of the bass. Bass EncycloMedia introduces this vocabulary in the proper sequence.
As you'll quickly see, Bass EncycloMedia doesn't use staff notation to represent music, or tab (tablature) to show its location on the bass. Instead, fretboard diagrams and an "alpha-numeric" (letter and tone number) system of spelling is used to develop a vocabulary which will make it possible for you to read and perform any song in any style - and in any key!
Simply stated, Bass EncycloMedia presents its material in four parts: chord, scale, arpeggio and song. Theoretically, scales come first and from the letters and tone numbers of the scale, chords and arpeggios are spelled (constructed). However, I've chosen to introduce chords first because we tend to hear the harmony (chords) of a song first and then play a melody from the scale that fits the chords.
Any left hand fingerings illustrated in the Bass EncycloMedia are merely suggestions and many other alternate fingerings are possible. Feel free to play any chord, scale or arpeggio in a way that's most comfortable for you.
Bass EncycloMedia is based upon five chord forms and these five forms are created by vertically grouping the letters and tone numbers of a chord in one position. However, there are thousands of chord voicings (fragments) on the bass and these should also be explored. In addition, seven forms of vertically grouped scales and arpeggios are presented, and once again there are thousands of fragmented possibilities.
Forty-two songs are also included in Bass EncycloMedia, and every song has been analyzed to show each chord's corresponding tonal center scale and mode, providing you with many opportunities to apply the chords, scales and arpeggios that you have learned. In addition, numerous substitutional ideas are presented, which suggest many other combinations.
Throughout Bass EncycloMedia are "see page" links which refer you to important information related to the page you are currently on.
In closing, I trust that Bass EncycloMedia will provide you with many years of guidance and enjoyment, and will enable you to attain your musical dreams and your bass goals.
The simple truth is that the Guitar Encyclomedia provides the learning guitarist with more than enough tools for the money. What is contained in its pages would take years upon years and hundreds if not thousands of dollars of guitar lessons to obtain. And depending on the teacher that you routinely visit, you may not even get this information! I would highly recommend the GEM to anyone that's looking to improve their skills on the guitar. I would even recommend this to guitar instructors so that they are careful not to miss any important topics when planning their lessons for their students. Bottom line: 5 out of 5 Picks! - Chris Bereznay - Founder of www.musicgearreview.com.
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