The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to Reading Music

Stuart Clayton has authored three new books for Bassline Publishing’s Bass Essentials series, aimed at helping bassists master the fundamentals of reading music.

The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to Reading Music includes beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, to allow bassists to choose the ones best suited to their current skill level.

The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to Reading Music

Each book features audio tracks, via downloads from the publisher’s site.

“Having taught in a music school for several years, I have found that students often struggle to work on reading when they don’t have a teacher present” Clayton shared. “The inclusion of the audio files is designed to provide a reference point when working on the material without a teacher there to guide you. In order to keep the cost of our books down, we choose not to produce CD’s with the books, but offer all tracks as a free download from our website. That way, you can’t lose the CD, and the tracks can always be re-downloaded if needed.”

The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to Reading Music – Beginner Contents:

The Basics, Rhythm, More Pitches, More Rhythms, Octaves, Ties & Dotted Rhythms, Navigation, Time Signatures, Thirds, Accidentals, Key Signatures, Beginner Level Exercise Area

The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to Reading Music – Intermediate Contents:

Reading Semiquavers (Part 1), Fifths, Dynamics & Articulation, More Key Signatures, Reading Semiquavers (Part 2), Fourths, Compound Time Signatures, Fifths, Reading on Ledger Lines, Intermediate Level Exercise Area

The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to Reading Music – Advanced Contents:

Reading Semiquavers (Part 3), Sevenths, More Key Signatures, Reading on a 5-String Bass, Reading Chords, Odd Time Signatures, Reading Treble Clef, Reading Cut Common Time, Reading Lead Sheets, Advanced Level Exercise Area

All three books are slated to be released as interactive iPad editions later this year, following in the footsteps of the Ultimate Slap Bass series and The Bass Player’s Guide to Scales and Modes.

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  1. It’s truly fantastic that such books have been written. Really. I’d love to get them myself, as my reading skills are… well… if the score’s not too complicated, I’m able to decipher a single bar within about fifteen minutes, counting up and down from low E ;-) So I’d really could use such a course. But… What makes me sad is that – apart from the traditional paper edition – the only operating system which will support the books is iOS. I’m one of the people who don’t believe the iHype and avoid all the iCrap. Will the books be available for a “normal” computer/laptop/Android-operated tablet later on?

    • Jarek, if Google ever releases software to allow me to develop these books for Android tablets, I will certainly do so! Apple are the only company to have gone down the road of allowing authors to create interactive books like this. Their software is free, but creates products that can only be viewed on the iPad. We are going to release these books as standard ebooks as well (later in the year), but as the ebook format doesn’t allow for audio and video content at present, the experience is nowhere near as good as it is on the iPad.

    • @[516514898:2048:Stuart Clayton] “but as the ebook format doesn’t allow for audio and video content”… but you did it for Ultimate Slap Bass ….. ? I own a version with encapsulated audio in PDF, and upgraded with the new audio tracks, and use it on a simple Vista/XP PC…. or maybe I don’t understand your point of view… I found the experience quite good with encapsulated audio in the PDF’s IMHO, video can’t really be encapsulated too ? but maybe am I satisfied with “old technology” lol anyway good stuff as usual ;)

    • Hi Joachim, those were plain old PDF’s with embedded audio content. We stopped doing these as they soon wound up on torrent sites meaning that people were able to get hold of them without paying for them!

  2. Great idea to split the reading into three stages, makes great sense to stop students “chapter hopping ahead” and missing out on relevant info and skill development. Pity about the Android situation, but the future of books must hark back to why paperbacks editions were offered as well as hard back, that e-books (all formats) are offered as a standard format option from release.
    Looking forward to the down loads when the happen.

  3. I see that the publisher is selling them for Brittish Pounds. Are these books available from a publisher in the US yet?

    • Hi Michael, No, these books will not be available from any US publishers. You’ll only be able to get them from Bassline Publishing (despite what Amazon might say…), but we do ship worldwide. Cheers, Stuart