Janek Gwizdala has been crafting a career both as a performer and an educator for years.
Being prolific on both sides of things allows him to have a unique perspective as a player and teacher. As a guitarist, I actually have learned a lot from Janek’s perspectives as a bassist. Therefore today I’m revisiting this book from 2018, looking through the lens of myself as a guitarist and educator.
Firstly, the thing about these exercises is not that they are original or cutting edge or anything like that but they are cool because they legit work. I remember working through exercise 1 (which is really a straight forward arpeggio exercise) but approaching it the way Janek suggests made me get so much from it.
That being said, the best part of the book is actually all the videos that Janek includes, demonstrating the examples. It’s one thing to read the exercise but to hear Janek play the ideas is valuable, especially if you listen closely to how he plays.
Janek has great tone, touch and time that I got a lot of mileage trying to emulate how his playing feels like when I listen to him play.
The interesting part for me is that it’s not that I’ve never encountered this kind of material before, somehow the combination of watching Janek play and the explanations in the book (even though they are brief) just made a lot of sense to me.
So even though this book is marketed for bass players I feel that this book is useful for guitarists and potential other instrumentalists as well.
It’s interesting for me to come back to this book since I have checked it out before but this time around I feel I actually GET the book much more than before. This is probably a reflection of that whole, “when the student is ready the teacher will appear” thing.
The book really could have just been 43 pages or so, but I am glad he made it more accessible with the bass tablature and treble clef notation versions. I initially read the bass clef notation but then later worked though the treble clef version to make it easier. Eventually, the lines become internalized anyway, so it really is under your fingers and in your ears.
All in all, this is a cool book that is useful and straight to the point. That is the real strength of the book. For anyone who is looking for text heavy theory explanations, it’s best to look elsewhere. But, if you just wanna sound good and get your chops up, this book might help!
Pros: Great exercises, notated in both bass & treble clefs and in tablature included
Cons: If you’re looking for QUANTITY of materials then this book won’t have it.
TLDR: A good book to help develop improvisational concepts not just for bassists, but other instruments too.
Get your copy here directly from Janek: https://janekgwizdala.myshopify.com/pages/books
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