Playing Keyboard Bass Lines: Left Hand Technique for Keyboards

Rating:
Summary: Base Line Practice If You Love Drills
Review: I got this book hoping for some good "base line" advice. Well, I have to admit this book was a lot more complex than I thought a book on this topic would be. Usually, jazz theory books have maybe a page or two dedicated to base lines. Well, this book is about 100 pages dedicated to all kinds of drills for base lines, mostly the II-V-I progression. Basically it's filling in base notes in between chords, using chordal or non-chordal notes, in different time sequences. The CD runs through all of the drills, which are mostly minor permutations of the last one played. I was kind of hoping for a little more advice on how to construct good base lines if you're using other types of progressions. And also maybe something on how baselines relate to chords, pedal point, slash chords, or non-tonal polychordism. Then again this is just a book on base line playing, so I won't be hard on this book because this stuff is obviously very challenging, and it requires a lot of practice, so this author decided that this is the only way to go with it. Get it if you're into to base line playing for old standards.

Rating:
Summary: Base Line Practice If You Love Drills
Review: I got this book hoping for some good "base line" advice. Well, I have to admit this book was a lot more complex than I thought a book on this topic would be. Usually, jazz theory books have maybe a page or two dedicated to base lines. Well, this book is about 100 pages dedicated to all kinds of drills for base lines, mostly the II-V-I progression. Basically it's filling in base notes in between chords, using chordal or non-chordal notes, in different time sequences. The CD runs through all of the drills, which are mostly minor permutations of the last one played. I was kind of hoping for a little more advice on how to construct good base lines if you're using other types of progressions. And also maybe something on how baselines relate to chords, pedal point, slash chords, or non-tonal polychordism. Then again this is just a book on base line playing, so I won't be hard on this book because this stuff is obviously very challenging, and it requires a lot of practice, so this author decided that this is the only way to go with it. Get it if you're into to base line playing for old standards.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Idea But The Execution Is Not Perfect
Review: I was really psyched up to go through this enire book methodically and become a baseline expert, but I quickly got bogged down and discouraged. The first two excercises go through a simple bass line progression in all 12 keys and have the right hand comp-chords written out. Unfortunately the CD plays so fast that I had trouble playing along with it perfectly and ended up reinforcing sloppy finger technique. All the rest of the exercises show the left hand only and do not show the right hand comp-chords. That presented a problem for me because I am not secure on right hand voicings and rhythm so I had to pencil in the comp rhythms from the first two excercises onto the following exercises. Starting with the 5th exercise the book stops showing the bass lines transposed into all 12 keys and instead only shows them transferred into about 4 keys. The book "helpfully" suggests that the student transpose it in his head into all the other keys. Well, that sounds easy until one actually tries doing it, especially as the CD only has (very, very fast) accompaniments for a few of the keys instead of all 12. I found that the base lines were so similar to each other that it got pretty boring to practice after a couple of weeks. I'm putting the book aside for the time being because I've found some other books on keyboard voicings that are a better use of my time. I realize Valerio's book is the only one available on the subject so I shouldn't complain. It's probably my fault that I can't seem to find the right approach for making good use of the book. Perhaps I should just play the left hand without a right hand at all, and only play in the keys he wrote the exercises in. I really don't know.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Idea But The Execution Is Not Perfect
Review: I was really psyched up to go through this enire book methodically and become a baseline expert, but I quickly got bogged down and discouraged. The first two excercises go through a simple bass line progression in all 12 keys and have the right hand comp-chords written out. Unfortunately the CD plays so fast that I had trouble playing along with it perfectly and ended up reinforcing sloppy finger technique. All the rest of the exercises show the left hand only and do not show the right hand comp-chords. That presented a problem for me because I am not secure on right hand voicings and rhythm so I had to pencil in the comp rhythms from the first two excercises onto the following exercises. Starting with the 5th exercise the book stops showing the bass lines transposed into all 12 keys and instead only shows them transferred into about 4 keys. The book "helpfully" suggests that the student transpose it in his head into all the other keys. Well, that sounds easy until one actually tries doing it, especially as the CD only has (very, very fast) accompaniments for a few of the keys instead of all 12. I found that the base lines were so similar to each other that it got pretty boring to practice after a couple of weeks. I'm putting the book aside for the time being because I've found some other books on keyboard voicings that are a better use of my time. I realize Valerio's book is the only one available on the subject so I shouldn't complain. It's probably my fault that I can't seem to find the right approach for making good use of the book. Perhaps I should just play the left hand without a right hand at all, and only play in the keys he wrote the exercises in. I really don't know.