Hal Leonard Bass Method – Complete Edition Books 1, 2 & 3 for Electric Bass, Guitar Book for Beginners | Guitar Chord Book to Learn Guitar with Online Audio | Instructional Method by Ed Friedland

I have worked through this as an experienced musician and music teacher, but not an experienced bass player. For me, it ticks all the boxes in terms of content and logical presentation. It covers all aspects of technique and music reading in a very thorough and easy to understand way. If you want to learn bass as an experienced musician, or with the help of a teacher, it is a great book and tells you pretty much everything you need to know. The play along tracks (you get a download code) are great and I recommend getting the version with the audio tracks , not the one without them. I am not surprised how good it is, given that it was written by Ed Friedland – great bass player and teacher.

This is a great book to learn how to play the bass by reading standard musical notation. However I would only recommend that you work through it from start to finish with the aid of a teacher. Working on my own I discovered that it was better to zero in on specific parts and concentrate on learning them first. For example, relatively easy, and essential, material on chords and scales is introduced in the later books and I felt it was wiser to cover this before some of the more difficult exercises in the first book. Also, your energies might be better employed learning the bass lines of real songs that you know, rather than those given here. I did pick out a few exercises that helped with particular skills and I memorised those. The rest I used to practice reading and once they became familiar, stopped playing them. A good companion book to this would be 'Bass Guitar for Dummies'. This has a section dedicated to grooving using chords and for a beginner would be more useful if you get together with other musicians to play.

I've been playing for longer than I care to mention and I bought this book because I'd decided to learn to read music properly. A month later and it seems to be working! The exercises are not too simple nor too boring and the material is presented in a way that doesn't assume the reader is an idiot. I'd worked through quite a number of examples before I listened to how they sounded on the CD and got a fright at how fast they were played compared with my plodding reading! I think that might just discourage an actual beginner. I've just reached exercise 81 and found the first mention of a tempo to practise at. The 50bpm suggested seems reasonable. Perhaps a discussion of tempo at the start of the book would help. Another little gripe which really applies to almost every instructional book or website I've seen is that there's no indication of how long it might take to work through each section. Not a problem for me as it'll take me as long as it takes, but when I think back to my barely remembered teenage years, I'd have rushed at the material and perhaps become frustrated at not being able to master it "quickly enough". All in all an excellent book and if I can learn to read music for around £13 it's a real bargain!

I have just finished working through this book and it's the best - for content and value for money. But for real progress make sure you practice playing, singing and naming notes no triads as well

When I first got my bass, I self-taught from Hal Leonard (No. 1 I think..). I got quite far with it, learning to read music as well as play. I then moved, and had barely picked up the bass in years. Recently, I decided that it was time to start again, but I'd forgotten everything and couldn't find the book, so I bought this one. It already has me back on track with my playing, and I'm re-learning how to read music. Fantastic book, great price for all 3 (incl. CDs)! Easy to follow - but not patronizing simple

Hal Leonard books are the way to go! Bought a bass to sink my teeth into over lockdown (already play the guitar) and this is my guide. It’s fantastic as expected, lays out great lesson plans, really easy to follow, starts off with the basics and builds in a coherent and logical way. Uses notation, it makes it really easy to follow and if anything see this as a great opportunity to learn music notation, it’s not as hard as you think.

This is a useful book and I am finding the lessons helpful. I do have one complaint: in spite of adjusting the balance, the bass guitar backing in some of the audio tracks is drowned out and difficult to hear properly because of the other instruments. Because of this I am deducting 2 stars.

Great book. Covers loads of stuff for beginners. On the photo the cover says it has a CD, but that's not true. It doesn't. You have to download from the internet (or play it live on there). That was disappointing. Otherwise though very happy with it. Just what I need.

Mycket nöjd med köpet

Muy buen libro. Tiene ejercicios muy sencillos al inicio, para familiarizarse con las partituras. Se accede a los audios en el sitio oficial, pueden descargarse en la compu.

Excellent introduction to any complete beginner in Bass guitar.

Metodo completo per principianti e non

I really like this book as a beginner. The ability to go online and get the tracks to play along with is great and helped me learn really quickly how to read and play. This is a great resource.