How To Play Bass - Learning From Paul McCartney Vol. 1: An 80-20 Device Method Book

I have three other books by Paul Wolfe, and have found all of them useful. I appreciate how he's broken down bass lines into “devices”. I was looking for a way to build my bass “vocabulary”, and have tried many different methods and approaches. None of them quite gave what I was looking for, which was, “What exactly do working bass players use to create their bass lines?” I intuitively understood they often had “common phrases” and “approaches” they relied on, because I could hear them on recordings, but I didn’t have a framework in which to learn them or use them. Paul's books break down what the best players use, in a way that makes sense to me, and allow me to build that vocabulary I wanted.In this book, McCartney's early bass lines are broken down into their elements, or "devices" as Wolfe calls them. (Actually, he doesn't use Paul's exact lines. Instead he uses examples that are "McCartney-esque", which I assume is due to copyright reasons. It doesn't matter, because how these lines are broken down is what's valuable.) The "devices", or phrases, help the player to understand how to the player can use those short bits in their own bass lines.The author has detailed explanations of how these devices are used, and even how they can be improved on. Initially, I found the explanations to be a bit wordy, but after working with the book for a while, I realize how valuable the explanations are. Once I understood the author's "system" of analyzing bass lines, the book became very easy to breeze through. And, there are online videos so you can see how the book's lines are played.I don't think any other bass book takes the approach to learning how to create bass lines that Wolfe does. I've found it quite helpful in my own learning. Highly recommended.

This book takes the author's 80-20 concepts (which I think of as a relative of chunking for memory or positions in chess) and uses it to break down what McCartney was doing on bass during the 1960s. As you work your way through this you'll find chunks that you like and/or find intriguing. Those you take and play with or manipulate until you are proficient with them and can use in other places. By doing this over time, more of what you play will be the tweeked versions of those bits you liked. You will begin to sound more like you than someone else.Just a note that I haven't worked with this book like I have his other books. I'm recuperating from problems with my left arm and shoulder. I'm actually using his book right now that focuses on how to practice when you are away from the bass.

So... being a bass lover, I have over time bought into multiple books, multiple courses, and bought into a subscription based site or two. For the most part I've enjoyed all of these learning formats and have a high amount of respect for both the teachers and writers. Now... I have to say that I think that maybe the best bass teaching bargain of all ...is a Paul Wolfe book and I recently added this one to my growing collection. So why? First, Paul is an incredible teacher and maybe the best in both a crowded and a talented field. He just does a great job of taking you through the subject one step at a time and thoroughly explaining each step, building a foundation under you as you progress through his books. Second, if you have not bought a book from Paul before you are going to be genuinely surprised/amazed at the amount of extra content provided. This book has nine seperate sight reading etude's in McCartney's style plus four bonus sections to supplement the book as well as multiple videos and sound tracks you can download. So looking for a good bass book to learn from? You found it!

I have not yet dug into this book as I am working on other books from this author. I had done a quick review of the contents and its has the exact same format as the Author's Learning From James Jamerson books.They provide good content that takes apart the way McCartney created bass lines. For me the way the Author details is something that really sticks with me. Now when picking up a new song I pencil in the scale degrees for each bar and it quickly shows me the way the bass line is created. I can then apply that and pick up what the bass line creator is trying to do with the line. The good thing about using the scale degrees instead of trying to learn the notes of the bass line is a change of key only tells me where to start and I easily can play the line without having to think thru all the note changes.

As with all his other books, the instructions are straight forward, inspiring and produce results. Showing the hows and whys of an artist's style is much more valuable than teaching some of their songs. This is exactly what this, and all his other, book teaches you. He breaks down the structure and provides methods to learn and apply it to your own bass lines. I have several of Paul's books and have never been disappointed. Another plus is, if you get stuck or just have a question, he will respond to clarify. Not all teachers will take the time to do that. I can't recommend this, and any other of his books, more than saying they are great, you should get it and know you will definitely learn valuable information. (Even if you aren't particularly interested in McCartney's style of playing, gaining this understanding gives you so much more. Plus, he has other books showing other artists styling, so no excuses...)

This is an unusually useful book for bass players. It teaches you practical music theory that you can easily use in your playing. It's a 'recipe book' for playing like McCartney. One particularly valuable aspect of Paul Wolfe's series of books is that you can use these tools to simplify bass parts that might otherwise be too difficult (think Geddy Lee or Chris Squire).

The whole concept of breaking things down to the bone and making adjustments off of that is incredible- things just slowing expand exponentiallyWill be getting others from Paul 👍

Very good book on how to play basslines or how to develop basslines like Mccartney did with the Beatles

Merci à Paul Wolfe pour sa méthode 80-20 qui permet de comprendre et maîtriser des lignes de basse facilement réutilisables ensuite pour accompagner d'autres morceaux, à condition d'y consacrer pas mal d'heures d'entraînement. Le livret donne aussi accès à un site internet spécial "Band in a box" très très utile.A noter que les explications sont en anglais évidemment et que la plupart des partitions sont en gamme de do majeur, il faut donc les transposer dans d'autres gammes si on veut les jouer comme sur les disques.

Helpful and useful

Un percorso metodico e razionale allo studio delle linee di basso di Paul Mccartney. Consigliato.