Bass Player's Guide To Pentatonics

Detailed and Fun

Book is organized well. I like that the 1st half is in music notation, but the second half is duplicated in tab. I’m learning to read music, but having the tab as well is sometimes helpful.

I would suggest this book to any bass player that wants to learn about pentatonic scales that help with your playing and bumps your skills up a notch. It’s only part of what you should be learning as a player.

I have a handful of Janek's books, and this has been the best one to date. It is incredibly accessible as a freelance musician. It helps to solidify information that I have been playing for years, and makes me accountable for pentatonics. The book has seamless transitions from one chapter to another which is excellent. This aspect of a bass player's playing is so important; this book is a must own for bass player's of all levels.

As other Janek's bass training books, the Pentatonics is easy to use and follow. Great value and practical.

Nice

AWESOME!

First off, I'd like to start by saying that I have a lot of respect for Janek. He's a great player and a fantastic teacher for the bass community. I own a number of his other books (the Chordal Harmony series, and All the Good Stuff) and have enjoyed working through his approach to growing as a player. I've been reading through a lot of Jazz Theory books lately and have been inspired by some of Gary Willis' teachings on how to use the Pentatonic scale effectively to improvise through changes. Eager to learn more, I was excited when I heard about Janek's new book. Sadly, I think he missed the mark on this one.Although the book is 167 pages in total, it is important to know that the lessons end on page 71. All of the exercises are then reprinted in tab and then treble clef. Given that the book is called "Bass Player's Guide To Pentatonics", I don't think a lot of non-bass players are going to pick this up, and even if they were to, I think most of them could get by reading the original transcription in bass clef just fine.In Part 1: Scales & Patterns, Janek jumps right into fingerings for the major and minor pentatonic scales. There is very little said about why one would want to use the pentatonic scale in the first place, or what makes it an effective tool in a musician's arsenal. I think it is extremely important to put some effort into addressing this in a book exclusively dedicated to pentatonics. There is also no mention of the intervallic formula for either the major or minor pentatonic scale, or talk of their relation to diatonic major/minor scales.We begin by working through common fingerings for the G major and minor pentatonic scale. From there we add an additional octave and several other fingerings before moving on to four-note shapes of the major pentatonic modes. Not much is said about why we're shifting from a 5 note scale to four-note phrases, it's just written that they are very common, they do not fully define each of the major modes, and that Coltrane used them. Then these ascending four-note pentatonic major and minor shapes are transcribed for all 12 keys which feels a bit redundant. It feels like we're working more on sight-reading and fretboard mastery since there is little commentary on the theory behind the pentatonic scales.There are more exercises to get us familiar with the sound and notes of the pentatonic scale across the fretboard before we move on to "playing through Giant Steps without having to think about it." The problem is that I want to think about it... I bought this book to think about it. The whole section here is added without any harmonic analysis as to why the pentatonic scale works over the changes in Giant Steps. I need that explanation to guide me otherwise how can I reuse these principles on other standards?I'm going to stop myself from critiquing the rest of the book. Admittedly in Part 3: Harmonic Expansion, Janek admits that it's not his goal to cloud your performance process with theory, something that I wish I knew before spending the $36 on this book. There is some useful content in this section, but there are also three examples where each part is printed eight times over six pages with the only difference being the chord denoted on top which felt a little unnecessary.I'm not posting this review to rag on what Janek has done here or dissuade you from picking up this book, I think it's a really important thing to write a book about. I just think the author took the easy way out by printing and reprinting different 5 note exercises and left the heavy lifting to you, the reader, to figure out the rest. If you're looking for a book to practice pentatonic shapes across the fretboard this might be of value to you, but if you're a bass player looking to understand the how and why of pentatonics, I think you might be best off looking elsewhere.

I like the material covered but not that it’s all in music notation with no tab except as appendix: however it comes with a link to useful videos

Janek,for me, Is One of the best bass teacher. Every book Is a new chapter in my bassist Life... And this book Is a New Chapter!!! Absolutely a must to have. Thanks Janek

The book filled in a couple of gaps, in my bass knowledge, that needed attention.

Books just arrived yesterday so just starting to dip toes in. So far very impressed. Layout of these books are getting better and better.Clear brief explanations for the exercises with lots of variations and encouragements to work out what works for you best.The fingerings are great addition and I hope this is taken forward in future .There's tabs and treble clef as well as bass clef. Depending on what you're after. Tab and treble are laid out in the appendix which i think if far better way to do it. If you're a guitar playing coming across and want to brush up on your bass cleff there's no temptation for your eye to drift to the treble cleff or tab, but its there at the back if you need it.Overall great content, great layout, very nice book.

Great book, well presented and good attention to detail, with loads of interesting exercises. The online content is also well produced and informative. It's everything you'd expect from Janek.