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I wasn't sure if this should go under theory or technique, but I'm putting it under theory. I'm something of a junk for bass method books, but I don't have room to keep them easily accessible in my practice room. So they live in a plastic tub in the garage. Every once in a while, I grab a few and decide I'm going to work with them. So, this weekend, I dug out the following books, which will be on my music stand until further notice:

50 Modal Slap Bass Workouts by Chris Matheos

This is one of Mel Bay's "Quikguide" series of small, short, inexpensive book/CD combos on various topics. I grabbed this one a long time back but never did anything with it. I started goofing with it last night and learned some cool new slap ideas, including some nice double-thumping ideas (Matheos calls these "Flamenco thumb technique"). Quite a bit of the book focuses on playing scales using combinations of slap/pop and hammer-ons/pull-offs. So, essentially, the idea is to be able to use slap/pop to do things you'd normally only be able to do fingerstyle (i.e. very Vic Wooten-ish approach). It's tab-only. I honestly haven't bothered with the CD yet, since all of the patterns are in straight eights or straight triplets.

Building Walking Bass Lines by Ed Friedland

You guys probably have checked out Friedland's books or his articles in Bass Player magazine. He's a great teacher. I've had this book since it came out. In fact, I linked the book/cd version, but I actually own the book/cassette version, though I have no clue where the cassette is and really wish I had access to the CD (hint, hint). I've made it about half way through this book before, but it bears repeating and will give me a little reading practice as it is notation only. Up until about half way through, the examples are all in easy key signatures. Then things get harder, so the last item on the list should make sense:

Sight Reading for the Bass by Ron Velosky

This one makes me a little sad. Ron Velosky sent me a review copy of this book years ago after seeing Wheat's BassBook and some reviews of instructional books I had in the back of it. Ron died in 2002. I've been singing his book's praises praises since I first got it, because it is, honestly, the best bass sight reading book I've seen. It's on a small press called Denim Music and is hard to find (which is why the link above is not to the Bassplaying.com Online Store). But it's worth seeking out.

The second best one out there, IMHO, is Note Reading Studies for Bass by Arnold Evans. It's another Mel Bay book.

So, besides recording a track for the BP recording project, I'm going to be working on my slap, walking, and reading skills in the coming weeks. If the rest of you are working with specific books or videos, feel free to chime in. And, if you want to, look them up by ISBN at the online store and link over to them, so others can benefit from them (and support the site at the same time). Or, if that's too much trouble, just post the name and title and I'll look 'em up for you and add the links in a comment to your post.