I’ve been teaching in a variety of settings since 1980. Starting at a small music store in Acton, MA, I went on to teach at Berklee College Of Music, Boston College, Milton Academy, and Arizona State University. I’ve taught at bass conferences around the world, even ran two weekend bass workshops of my own many years ago, School of Bass I & II. But ultimately, I love teaching private lessons. One-on-one mentorship can be the most rewarding and effective way to help people attain their goals. I am accepting private students at home in Tucson (worth the trip!), and online.
Over the last year, I’ve been working hard on this new education-based website, putting together the courses, and filling the community space with new lessons, and tons of stuff from my archives from Bass Player magazine, private teaching, workshops, websites, basically—all the places I’ve created content for. Now, it’s all going up in one place, Ed Friedland’s Bass Whisperer Community. It’s sort of a grab bag of bass lessons, theory, reading, blues, jazz, gear features, tech articles, style studies, transcriptions… there’s a lot going on. Below you’ll find some samples of what you’ll find in the community, and check out the courses page to see the ever-growing list of master classes.
From the Community – Chart Reading Secrets, and a few dirty ones too!
From the Community – Road Maps
Free Master Class, Metronome Torture Tests!
Inspired by a continuing disagreement over using the metronome to improve one’s ability to keep time, this is an excerpt from one of the two FREE COURSES available in the community.
Even if you believe this won’t help – try it! If you can do it, move on. If you can’t… keep at it until you can. Thousands of students have used these exercises over the years with great success, it’ll work for you too – if you do it! Many ideas like this are featured in my book “Bass Grooves”. This book will become one of the new Master Classes featured here at edfriedland.com. I’ll be starting work on that soon.
Metronome Torture Test!!!
Download the PDF for this lesson free!
Pentatonic Scales For Bass
Taken from my book Pentatonic Scales For Bass, these lessons explore the use of Pentatonic Modes to help you create musical bass lines, and more interesting solos.
END PENTATONIC ABUSE!
Download the PDF for this lesson free!
Know Your Neck!
Another FREE Master Class from the Community.
Do you REALLY know your fingerboard? Some people can only follow the guitar player, or memorize where they play in relation to the dots, or play strictly by ear and never think about what note they might be playing. Don’t get me wrong—all three of those approaches are great, and we ALL play that way too. But here’s the thing, if you LEARN EVERY NOTE on the fingerboard, and understand how each one is a different TEXTURE to be used musically—NOW you’re approaching the instrument the way all the BEST players do. The fingerboard is your workspace, your neighborhood, and your playground—KNOW YOUR NECK!!