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    The Bass Guitarist's Guide to Reading Music - Advanced Level
    The Bass Guitarist's Guide to Reading Music - Advanced Level
    The Bass Guitarist's Guide to Reading Music - Advanced Level
    Ebook152 pages2 hours

    The Bass Guitarist's Guide to Reading Music - Advanced Level

    By Stuart Clayton

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    About this ebook

    This is the third and final book in a series that will teach you everything you need to know in order to be able to successfully read music on the bass guitar. Building on the topics covered in the first two books, this volume covers complex semiquaver rhythms, reading on a 5-string bass, reading treble clef, understanding odd time signatures and cut common time, and more advanced key signatures. The final part of the book contains ten 'real world' play-along tracks recorded with a full band. All audio files are available to download from the FREE Stuff! section of the publisher's website.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStuart Clayton
    Release dateJul 15, 2013
    ISBN9780992626815
    The Bass Guitarist's Guide to Reading Music - Advanced Level
    Author

    Stuart Clayton

    Stuart Clayton has been a professional musician and writer for over ten years. He has worked as a staff writer for Bass Guitar Magazine since its first issue, written seven bass instruction books for Sanctuary Publishing, including 100 Tips For Bass Guitar You Should Have Been Told, Crash Course: Bass, Bass Xtreme, Basic Bass Workout and Giants Of Bass and toured the world with Carl Palmer. He now runs his own company, Bassline Publishing, which publishes transcription books for legendary bassists such as Mark King, Stuart Hamm, Bernard Edwards and John Entwistle, as well as an acclaimed range of tuition books such as Ultimate Slap Bass and Solo Arrangements for Electric Bass. He is also Head of Bass at the British Institute of Modern Music (Bristol) and is an artist endorsee for Zon basses and Aguilar amplification.

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    • 5/5
      Goes into great depth about everything a bassist should be able to read as a professional

    Book preview

    The Bass Guitarist's Guide to Reading Music - Advanced Level - Stuart Clayton

    The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to

    Reading Music

    Advanced Level

    By Stuart Clayton

    Published by Bassline Publishing at Smashwords

    Copyright 2013 Stuart Clayton

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Table of Contents

    Introduction

    Chapter 1 – Semiquaver Rhythms – Part 3

    Chapter 2 – Sevenths

    Chapter 3 – More Key Signatures

    Chapter 4 – Reading on 5-String Bass

    Chapter 5 – Odd Time Signatures

    Chapter 6 – Reading Chords

    Chapter 7 – Reading Treble Clef

    Chapter 8 – More Time Signatures

    Chapter 9 – Reading Lead Sheets

    Advanced Level Exercise Area

    About the Author

    Introduction

    Welcome to The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to Reading Music: Advanced Level. This is the third and final book in a series of books that will teach you to read music on the bass guitar. This volume builds on all of the elements that were introduced in the first two, so even if you already have some reading experience, it is recommended that you work through those books before starting on this one.

    The ability to read music is one of the most important skills to master for an aspiring professional musician. Learning to read fluently will open up many areas of employment that would previously have been unavailable to you - session work, theatre shows, touring and function band work are all examples of paid, professional engagements which require reading musicians. Being able to read also means that you will be able to fill in for other players on short notice, as well as write and arrange parts for your own bands - both invaluable skills. Music is a highly competitive industry and in order to succeed in it you should look to find every advantage you can over your competition. Being the best reader that you can be is an excellent way to do this!

    I have written this series of books because after teaching both privately and in music schools for several years I have noticed that there is a serious lack of material available for bass guitarists who want to learn to read. Many of the books that are available contain predominantly dull, scale-based exercises, with almost no explanation as to how you should go about learning to read them. Similarly, very few contain explanations of musical features such as navigation, key signatures, time signatures or dynamics. In this book you’ll find that all of these things are covered in detail and are supported by an extensive selection of exercises which will allow you to work on them in a musical way.

    Audio Files

    This book is also unique in that it includes audio files for all of the exercises, which are available to download free of charge from the Bassline Publishing website. Whilst I believe that it is important to work on sight reading exercises predominantly with just a metronome, many of my students have raised the valid point: ‘how do I know if I’m playing it right?!’ The audio files therefore exist as a valuable reference point for you to use to check the accuracy of what you are playing when studying without a teacher present.

    To download the audio files, go to www.basslinepublishing.com and log in - if you don’t have an account, you’ll need to create one. Once logged in, click on FREE Stuff on the main menu. You’ll find the audio in a zip file listed under the bonus content for this book.

    The majority of the audio consists of bass guitar recorded with only a metronome rather than a full backing track. This has been done to encourage you to learn to keep your place within the score without the safety net of an obvious drum pattern to help you. However, the ten ‘real world’ exercises at the end of the book are recorded with a full band backing track so that you can put what you have learnt to the test in a more realistic environment. These tracks are available in two forms - with bass and without. You can use the bass tracks for reference if needed, and the backing tracks to play along with.

    How to Use This Book

    If you have already worked through the first two books you should know that in order to be able to read music fluently, you must first understand the language in which it is written. This book aims to continue teaching the fundamentals of the language of music, building on all of the topics that were covered in the first two books. Again, each new element will be illustrated through the use of examples and exercises.

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