Bass Tab White Pages

Sporting a ridiculous number of spot-on transcriptions in a variety of rock genres, this book is an incredible value. It's useful for players both new and old, regardless of skill level: there are songs in here to challenge and entertain every sort of player, and I think every bassist would benefit from owning a copy. Heck, I've been playing for more than 20 years, and even I found plenty of new material to chew on inside this book!

If you are a "learning" bass player, or are trying to broaden your repertoire, this is a fabulous resource. I've been trying to learn songs from tabs downloaded from various web sites, but find they are often wrong, incomplete, or confusing. The Bass Tab White Pages were correct and easy to follow. Be warned - it's a big book!

Tab versus Standard This mostly excellent compilation of over 4 decades of mostly rock songs shows the bassist's part in both standard and tab notation. (Standard requires reading notes; Tab actually shows the four bass strings and numbers what fret to play next). Who's in the Book While certain schools of funk and soul are slightly underrepresented for my tastes (where's James Brown or Sly Stone--were there copyrite issues?), the book includes some Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Martha and the Vandellas ("Dancing in the Street"), and The Four Tops. Mostly, though, this is a collection of what is now deemed "classic" rock (e.g., Cream, Beatles, Santana, Stones, The Who, Led Zep, Hendrix, David Bowie, the Byrds); metal bands (including Black Sabbath, Foo Fighters, Van Halen, Kiss, Metallica, GNR, Ozzy Osbourne); 1950s-1960's oldies (Fats Domino, Elvis, The Crests ["16 candles"], Ricky Nelson, , Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Jerry Lee Lewis), and a smattering of relatively recent (last 20 years) bands (the Black Crows, Goo Goo Dolls, Stone TEmple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine, Sheryl Crow, Slipknot, System of a Down). There are also some bands that are inexplicably included (why are there two songs from "power ballad" band, "Cinderella"), but, hey, to each his or her own. Only A Few Songs per Group Each group is represented by one to seven songs (only Stevie Ray Vaughn has that many), and most range from one to three. Therefore, if you're a big fan of a particular genre or band, you might look for a more specialized book. However, there aren't that many books with bass tab! What I Like About This Book Strengths of the book include the variety mentioned above, a one-page decoding of tab symbols, the excellent price, and song transcripts that generally show the treble clef, chord accompaniment, and lyrics. Sometimes you're only shown the 2 or 3 bass sections only, and the first few words/notes that accompany the riff without the rest of the song. Who Will Benefit From this Book? Moderate to advanced players will get the most from the "White Pages," and here's why: Even with the beginner-friendly tab, it is still very helpful to know how to read music. While tab indicates many of the techniques, it doesn't show you the all-important left hand finger placement that allows bassists to move smoothly over the neck, nor does it easily convey rhythm and the more complex moves. Unfortunately for the novice, many of the songs are at a fast pace and will be too difficult to play. Ideally, you'd have the bucks to get a -device that will play back slowed-down notes from a song without losing their pitch ($200 and up). Ideally, in fact, you'd have a guitar teacher! But for those without the time, money, or inclination to go this route, this book can get you playing pieces of some real songs, a rewarding activity that you won't get from too many beginner bass books. Recommendation For this reason alo

This book has given me hours and hours of entertainment. Although some of the selections are a bit obscure (Astronomy by Metallica?), the book delivers a tremendous amount of good songs from Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Beatles, lots of blues artists such as Freddie King, heavy metal such as Rage against the machine and black sabbath, and many many others. The tab transcripts are very faithful. I highly recommend this book to anyone who plays bass for rock or blues artists. It is hard to believe that they fit so many songs into one book...

I put down the bass for about a decade and recently picked it up again. Bass Tab White Pages was a huge help in learning songs from a wide variety of artists, from Stevie Ray Vaughan to David Bowie to old blues artists like Freddie King (Hideaway). Some of the selections were pretty odd for artists like Metallica and ZZ Top (why not pick "Enter Sandman" or "Tush") but these are minor quibbles.The tabs seem extremely accurate and very thorough. Every note is there including chords, pull offs, and other required parts if you want to play it "right".Finally, what I found very useful is that they recommended tuning for each song. I am constantly tuning my bass up or down depending on whether I am playing old stuff (standard tuning) or modern rock (tune way down) or Stevie Ray Vaughan (generally 1/2 step).There are 200 songs in this book and it will keep you busy for a very long time. It is fun to just sit down with this book and your CD collection and try out random songs. Enjoy!