James T.'s Profile

Video: You Can Play Electric Bass

This is a good introduction to bass playing. Roly Salley has an engaging personality and he loves playing the bass. He explains what he's doing and why, starting from simple exercises to some challenging ones.

The video would have been improved with more imaginative camera work. It has the feel of a home made video, with a camera set up in the middle of the room and a guy with a guitar standing in front of it. Roly never quite loses his nervousness, and the camera angle never changes.

Roly did a good job in explaining things that are important for a bass player to know, for example, recognizing bass patterns. He kept saying it's important to know music theory and he'd occasionally lapse into jargon, e.g., "You may recognize this as a circle of fifths."

I liked this video and I'd recommend it.