60 Melodic Etudes

Description

Double Bass, Electric Bass — This book is designed for acoustic bassists, electric bassists and cellists whowant to:• Improve their knowledge of the fingerboard.• Practice interpreting and phrasing melodies.• Improve their intonation and time.• Learn to play with more flexible time by practicing rubato passages.• Strengthen their ears to hear the five basic chord sounds within the diatonicmajor scale: major, minor 7, dominant 7, minor 7≤5 and major 7≥11.• Learn to hear and use various diatonic modes and scales against these fivebasic chords: Major, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, andLocrian.• Gain valuable experience on the use of the melodic-minor scale over theminor-seventh ≤5 chord.As far as I know, this is the first book to have a separate melodic etude for eachof these five chord sounds in all twelve keys. I also left room on a few occasionsfor you to try your hand at improvising for a few measures within an etude.The etudes have tempo markings, but should be practiced at different temposand even rubato (i.e., elastic and flexible time with room for speeding up andslowing down to enhance the freedom of the artist’s expression). These etudesalso help the bassist and cellist tackle the common technical problems that allmust deal with, such as shifting on one string, string crossing and alternatingright-hand plucking and bowing. For acoustic bassists and cellists, every etudecan be played pizzicato and/or arco. I deliberately shied away from providingfingerings and bowings because I would rather you explore many alternativesfor each passage.In Part II of the book (pp. 69–128), I have included a complete fingering chartfor both acoustic and electric bass for all the scales. The scale examples aregiven in two ways: 1) Starting on the root note and 2) starting on the lowestnote available on the fingerboard. The second example is provided to foster amore comprehensive knowledge of the instrument.If you have a teacher—which I feel is extremely important—s/he may want towrite down ideas for you as well. Also, as you vary the tempo of each etude, youmay have to alter fingerings and bowings.In closing, I sincerely hope and believe that this book will help you grow as amusician and be a useful tool for many years to come. This book, from one of the most popular bass players in the business, brings players great tools to improve their skills. Bass players can advance their knowledge of the fingerboard, improve intonation and time, develop flexibility and work though modes and scales presented in the book. This work combines music and technique in one powerful package!