Product Description

A must-have for any bass player! This outstanding 200-song collection features note-for-note bass transcriptions with tab, straight from the original recordings. All styles of music are represented in this massive, 1024-page compilation. Includes: All Apologies * All Shook Up * Another One Bites the Dust * Are You Gonna Go My Way * Baby Love * Bad Medicine * Badge * Barracuda * Beast of Burden * Blue on Black * Blue Suede Shoes * Blueberry Hill * Brass in Pocket * Bulls on Parade * Carry on Wayward Son * Cherry Pie * Come Out and Play * Come to My Window * Come Together * Couldn't Stand the Weather * Detroit Rock City * Eight Days a Week * Fly Away * Free Ride * Get Ready * Great Balls of Fire * Hard to Handle * Hey Joe * Hey Man Nice Shot * Higher Ground * I Can See for Miles * I Fought the Law * The Impression That I Get * Into the Great Wide Open * Iris * Iron Man * Jessica * Learn to Fly * Maggie May * Maria Maria * Money * My Girl * Oye Como Va * Paperback Writer * Paranoid * Pride and Joy * Riding with the King * Semi-Charmed Life * Sultans of Swing * Under Pressure * Walk of Life * Would? * Wonderwall * and many more!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23389 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-01
• Released on: 2001-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1024 pages

Customer Reviews

4 1/2 A Bassist's Data Base
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 alone (and, again, I'm speaking to newcomers), the White Pages can be a useful, fun resource, particularly when paired with a really excellent instruction book such as "Bass Guitar for Dummies." You might want to supplement this with bass transcriptions from the internet, sometimes from bass interest groups. (One problem with that, however, is that tab notations are not always the same.) The bottom line is that fairly competent bass players will enjoy a lot of transcriptions at a cheap price, while novices will have fewer songs they can play all the way through. The publisher might have thought to publish 2 or 3 books like this, but differentiated by the difficulty (speed, complexity, etc.) of the bass line.

Bass Tab Book a Great Help
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!

Wonderful Reference Book for "A bit of Everything"
This is a fantastic book if you want to please everyone.
From old classics to new Rock Anthems. Its got them all.
Impress your granny and your teenage brother all at the same time.

Good explanation of the notations in there aswell.

Has both Tab and full music notation. So if you are trying to learn to read Bass music notation its great to have the tab there to help you out when you get confused with all those sharps and flats in some songs.

I keep going back to it. People in the house pick it up, read the song list and say "Oh, play that one for me".
(Why do they always pick the one haven't learnt?)

A must-have for all those budding bassists.