Bass Books
The Best Beatles Books for Bass Players
Beatles Books for Bass Players…
UPDATED: This week we take a look at the 10 best Beatles books for bass players.
Hofner – The Complete Violin Bass Story
The Hofner Violin Bass Guitar is one of the most instantly recognizable musical instruments ever made. Its fame was assured when a certain young English guitarist walked into a shop in Hamburg in 1961, saw exactly what he was looking for, and ordered a left-handed version. The rest, as they say, is history.
THE BEATLES: COMPLETE SCORES
A fitting tribute to possibly the greatest pop band ever – The Beatles. This outstanding hard-cover edition features over 1100 pages with full scores and lyrics to all 210 titles recorded by The Beatles. Guitar and bass parts are in both standard notation and tablature.
THE BEATLES: 1962-1966
26 Bass lines from The Beatles’ early hits transcribed note-for-note with tab, including: All My Loving, And I Love Her, Can’t Buy Me Love, Drive My Car, Eight Days a Week, Eleanor Rigby, From Me to You, Girl, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Michelle, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer, She Loves You, Ticket to Ride, We Can Work It Out, Yellow Submarine, Yesterday and more. Written in Standard Notation and TAB. 88 pages.
THE BEATLES: 1967-1970
Note-for-note bass transcriptions with tab for 28 later-day Beatles favorites, including: Across the Universe, All You Need Is Love, Back in the U.S.S.R. , The Ballad of John and Yoko, Come Together, Don’t Let Me Down, Here Comes the Sun, Hey Jude, Let It Be, The Long and Winding Road, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Octopus’s Garden, Penny Lane, Revolution, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Something, With a Little Help from My Friends, and more.
THE BEATLES BASS (SIGNATURE LICKS)
Learn the trademark bass lines from rock’s most influential band! This step-by-step breakdown of Paul McCartney’s bass guitar style includes in-depth analysis of 16 Beatles’ classics.
The Beatles – Bass Play-Along Volume 13
The Bass Play-Along series will help you play your favorite songs quickly and easily! Just follow the tab, listen to the online audio to hear how the bass should sound, and then play along using the separate backing tracks. The melody and lyrics are included in the book in case you want to sing, or to simply help you follow along.
THE BEATLES – ABBEY ROAD
Note-for-note transcriptions of Paul’s Bass parts from all 17 tracks from the classic album. Songs include: Carry That Weight, Come Together, The End, Golden Slumbers, Here Comes the Sun, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Something, You Never Give Me Your Money and more.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: PLAYING THE GREAT BEATLES BASSLINES
Paul McCartney is one of the best pop bass players in the world, and this book presents a musical analysis of his consistently inventive and influential bass playing during his tenure in the Beatles. This indispensable guide offers full transcriptions of nine of McCartney’s most revered bass parts.
Paul McCartney Bass Play-Along Volume 43 Book/Online Audio
The Bass Play-Along Series will help you play your favorite songs quickly and easily! Just follow the tab, listen to the audio to hear how the bass should sound, and then play along using the separate backing tracks.
How To Play Bass – Learning From Paul McCartney Vol. 1: An 80-20 Device Method Book
This volume distills McCartney’s early vocabulary into an easy to follow/quick to implement learning system that will teach YOU how to incorporate the foundational devices that McCartney used in YOUR lines.
If you are an electric bass player, this is an exciting time to be alive as this relatively new instrument evolves around us. Some creative individuals have taken an active role in this evolution and made giant leaps in their own direction. Lee Barker is one of these inventive people having created the Barker Bass.
Fortunately, Lee is also an excellent writer (among so many talents) and has recently released his book “Plausible Gumption, The Road Between a Christmas Toolbox and The Barker Bass”. This book is a very fun read for everyone and shares a ton of details about Lee’s life in general, his experiences as a musician, a radio host, and a luthier. Now I am fortunate to have the great opportunity to gain even more insights into this renaissance man with this video interview.
Plausible Gumption, The Road Between a Christmas Toolbox and The Barker Bass is available online at Amazon.com
The Bass Space: Profiles of Classic Electric Basses.
The definitive book for lovers of the low-end. Willie G. Moseley, Senior Writer for Vintage Guitar Magazine, profiles more than 100 historic and unique electric bass models from such makers as Alembic, Danelectro, Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Guild, Hamer, Kramer, Rickenbacker, and many others.
Rare and legendary instruments, from the earliest attempts at amplified basses in the mid-1930s to the cutting-edge instruments of today, are presented in more than 250 color and period photos.
The main feature of this book is the exclusive coverage of historic and one-of-a-kind basses owned and played by such famed musicians as: Bill Black (Elvis Presley), Tim Bogert (Vanilla Fudge), Mark Egan (Pat Metheny Group), John Entwistle (The Who), Paul Goddard (Atlanta Rhythm Section), Bruce Hall (REO Speedwagon), Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), Benjamin Orr (The Cars), Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick), Carl Radle (Derek and the Dominos), Gene Simmons (Kiss), Steve Wariner, and others.
The Bass Space: Profiles of Classic Electric Basses is available online at Amazon.com
Bass Books
Review: The Bastard Instrument, A Cultural History of the Electric Bass by Brian F Wright
I was intrigued when The Bastard Instrument showed up on my desk… let’s dig in!
When we dive into the history of our beloved instrument, the bass, we find roots that go back as far as the 15th century. This instrument was a member of the violin family and was for the longest time, an acoustic instrument. As the years passed and music changed, there was a need for the instrument to evolve and the electric bass was born.
Comparatively, the electric bass is a relatively new instrument with its earliest appearances dating back to the 1930s and it is exciting to be an electric bass player while this history unfolds around us. Fortunately for us and future generations to come, Professor Brian F. Wright has taken on the herculean task of documenting the trajectory of the electric bass with this excellent book.
The Bastard Instrument presents an extraordinary amount of fine details about the instrument itself, the development of the amplification to handle its output, the pioneers that dared play it, the rapidly evolving music that flourished because of its presence and so much more.
When I first started reading this book, I noticed that it felt a tad academic, like a textbook (it might be one someday) or a doctoral thesis, but to present all this information accurately, this approach is more than appropriate. Another detail that might be a bit of a spoiler is that the book only gets us up to the late ’60s. I was left wanting more as we know that so much has happened in the bass world since that time frame; I hope there is another volume in the works to get us up to the present!
All in all, “The Bastard Instrument, A Cultural History of the Electric Bass” is a must-read for all of us who play electric bass and understand its essential place in music.
I found that there was a lot that I already knew but also quite a bit that I was unaware of. I believe that to know and understand where you are, you must know the history of exactly how you got here.
Highly recommended.
The Bastard Instrument is available at Amazon.com (beginning July 2024)
The Bassist’s Complete Guide to Injury Management, Prevention and Better Health
I have often thought that it would be great if the doctors who delivered us as newborn babies provided us with a user manual to help us navigate through life in the best way possible. Now Dr. Randall Kertz, D.C. has produced a manual specifically designed to address the many possible afflictions plaguing us bass players.
Many of you will remember volumes 1 & 2 of this book and our first review in 2007. The new complete guide combines the two volumes and features over 20 pages of new material including interviews, techniques, and conditions.
If you play bass, you can read this book cover to cover and walk away with a ton of relevant and helpful knowledge. Another option is to search out issues relevant to you specifically (I found quite a few of my own with helpful options). This is possible because the book is very nicely organized into six chapters that address Pain, Conditions, Techniques, Road Issues, Inspirational Q&A with some of the biggest names in the bass community (too many to list here) and finally How to get relief.
All said, this book is essential if you play either electric or upright bass to the point where they should issue you one when you get that first bass in your hands.
Lastly, if you have this book and you have specific questions, Dr. Kertz is readily available through his website, www.drkertz.com. As if that was not enough, he has a wealth of knowledge you can find right here on our website at bassmusicianmagazine.com/author/randallkertz
Get this book… Live long and play bass well into the years! Available on Amazon.com
The Bassist’s Complete Guide to Injury Management, Prevention & Better Health is now available!
A compilation of Volumes 1 & 2 of the acclaimed Bassist’s Guide with 20+ pages of new interviews, techniques, and conditions, The Complete Guide puts everything in one convenient place.
Available at Amazon.com and from our friends at Bassline Publishing
Follow Dr. Kertz’s Bass Player Health at Bass Musician Magazine