Ray Brown – Bass Method for Jazz and Blues | Learn Essential Exercises for Double Bass and String Bass | Master Walking Bass, Chords, and Arpeggios | Hal Leonard Instructional Book

I'd expect an editor, after all these years, to have fixed common fingering mistakes. Speaking of fingerings, One set of fingerings and one is suppose to know the other strings? It's not how it works. Might be better with a dedicated teacher but not if you are learning on your own.

I study under Danny Morris and he suggested this book to me.I am an electric bass player and want to take a deeper dive into walking bass. He recommend this book as an introduction to alternate fingering patterns (upright vs electric). I've only had this book a few days and look at my fretboard in a whole new manner.There is a simple elegance to Ray's approach. And yes, it's a ton of scales, but if you're serious about bass playing, especially jazz, it's one of the fundamentals you will need to fully understand.

Son learning stand up base and feels that the information is useful

he just gets right into the meat and potatoes. almost without an explanation. it's basically saying if you want to get good practice your scales... and that's basically what he starts you doing, then intervals etc. i.e. the master of the instrument is basically saying you wanna get good you need to practice your fundamentals

This is a very good book, especially if you are an experienced player and know how to read. Good for any level from intermediate to pro. Most of it is filled with repetitive exercises to develop good technical and harmonic skill with various chordal structures and rhythm. It's all there; patterns, drops, rakes, diminished, augmented, whole tones, blues, double stops, etc... He's got some really great sample blues lines that any player could easily add to his trick bag. Most of the fingerings are not specified, making you experiment and think for yourself how to get around. He states that this was his intention. Overall you can't go wrong with this method book. I feel honored to be able to vicariously study with the best upright player in the history of commercial and jazz music, for a mere thirteen bucks! He was truly the greatest!

It’s Ray Brown, what else is left to be said? If you don’t know, then you better ask somebody!

I bought this book for my daughter. The exercises are good, and very appropriate for developing jazz chops, but they're not beginner material. You need to know your way around the fingerboard before you'll make good use of this book.

This book is the quintessential book for the developing double bassplayer since the Simandl method. Full of exercises, Etudes and fingering ideas this book is fantastic for developing the skills to negotiate the fingerboard.Don't expect to come out of this book as the next Ray Brown but certainly expect to become a more accomplished bass technician. Musicality comes from years of transcribing, playing and making mistakes. That said, none of the above can truly be executed unless you can master the rudimentary technical side of bass playing and this book as a brilliant start.

This book is unfortunately just a series of scales, arpeggios, chords and exercises. There is are no actual lessons or teaching philosophy as stated on the back of the book. Disappointing and virtually unusable for the beginner who needs to be introduced to the subject of jazz bass in a less painful way!

This is my second "Ray Brown Bass Method" -- wore the other one out. This "scale book" is much more than that. What I love is that the book "gravitates" around jazz and the blues idioms. Despite one's taste and ear for the art, they can both be daunting to master. From the beginning it gets into technique which is essential to building your chops. The material isn't just for beginners (although it's simple and clear, it's also challenging). What can you say? One could have worse taskmasters than the great Ray Brown -- since in the end, nothing substitutes for doing your scales...

Wealth of information and a companion for life. Very comprehensive and will give you hours of pleasure . Will extend your knowlege and improve your playing and understanding of your instrument. Highly recommended

This is a practical workbook starting with the basics. Having played fretless electric bass for many years it is great to work through this book as it instills in the reader the biomechanics of playing a double bass (which are notably different to electric bass) as one progresses through the exercises. Top notch!

Great teaching book.