Funk and Disco Grooves For Bass & Guiitar - Book Review

Bernard Edwards of Chic laid down some essential funk grooves during his time with Chic. Finally someone has had the foresight to transcribe some of his greatest grooves and present them for the bass community. Stuart Clayton has released a book of both Bernard's bass lines AND Nile Rodgers' guitar lines. The book is called Funk & Disco Grooves For Bass & Guitar.

So What's The Book About?

This book is a collection of transcriptions of both guitar and bass lines to a host of great tunes that were played on by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. The book covers songs from Chic, Sister Sledge & Diana Ross - as well as the song they produced for Carly Simon called Why.

How Is The Book Presented?

Because these songs relied heavily on sections built upon grooves that then repeated, the transcriptions are not always presented as 'whole' songs. Instead you might get say the intro, the verse, the chorus and the bridge.

The transcriptions themselves are published in standard notation with chord symbols and tab.

The book is around 140 pages long and soft bound. Stuart Clayton the author has self published this book and previous books of his have featured spiral binding - sadly, this one doesn't have a spiral binding. As well as the transcriptions there are some short sections on gear and technique, and the history of how Chic came together.

What Songs Are Included?

The book features bass and guitar lines to 20 songs. These include Dance Dance Dance, Everybody Dance, Strike Up the Band, Le Freak, Chic Cheer, I Want Your Love, Happy Man, He's The Greatest Dancer, We are Family, Lost In Music, Thinking of You, Pretty Baby, Good Times, My Feet Keep Dancing, My Forbidden Lover, Upside Down, I'm Coming Out, My Old Piano, Burn Hard and Why.

How Could This Book Be Better

There's no CD to playalong to with this book - the author states that he thought about it, but then decided it would be better to play along to the original recordings and absorb the essence of groove directly. I still think a CD would have made this better though.

Some video lessons - whether available with the book, or as additional content accessed via the internet - would also have been good. Especially some footage of the unusual 'thumb as pick' technique that Bernard Edwards used on Everybody Dance.

And from a personal viewpoint there are some songs that Bernard played on that I'd have liked to see included - and some that are included I'd have liked to see not included. But that's always going to be the way with projects of this nature.

Summary

This is a 5 Star book. Even the lack of spiral binding can't stop me giving this book 5 stars. The bass lines of Bernard Edwardr are well worth of study and reproduction. Don't let the fact that Chic were a 'disco' band fool you - there are some serious bass lines going on and we should all be thankful to Stuart Clayton that he was transcribed some of Bernard Edwards's finest moments for us.