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News
Study Bass Online - Enroll Today!
*Special Lessons Promotion*
Buy 5 Lessons & Get 2 FREE!
OR
Buy 5 Lessons & Get 1 Live Video Bass Lesson FREE!
As part of a special lessons promotion that begins January 1, 2010, if you purchase a group of 5 correspondence lessons, you can choose between receiving 2 additional correspondence lessons for FREE or a 1-hour live video bass lesson for FREE! Along with the free lessons, correspondence students will also receive 10 essential listening tracks with each lesson, access to my streaming video library, and free technical phone support throughout the duration of your studies within my program.
To learn more about my bass lessons by correspondence, please go to:
Cliff Engel's Bass Lessons By Correspondence.
For more information, on my live video bass lessons, please visit: Cliff Engel's Live Video Bass Lessons.
To learn more about my bass lessons by correspondence, please go to:
Cliff Engel's Bass Lessons By Correspondence.
For more information, on my live video bass lessons, please visit: Cliff Engel's Live Video Bass Lessons.
Essential Listening Tracks
With each new correspondence lesson that I post for you to view/download, you will receive 10 essential listening tracks which will demonstrate the potential of the bass guitar and the acoustic upright bass. These selected tracks consist of historically significant recordings which feature some of the most influential and renowned bass virtuosos since the first half of the 20th century. I went through my entire audio library which includes over 1000 CD's, most of which are either bass player led or feature the bassist in a prominent fashion, and picked the best material. Many of these essential tracks are no longer in print, and some of these rare tracks were never officially released by their respective artists.
Streaming Video Library
My streaming video library showcases many of today's premier bassists and is available to all current correspondence lessons students. The streaming video library has been assembled in order to demonstrate techniques such as slapping, tapping, chords, harmonics, and playing in altered tunings.
Bass Lessons By Correspondence Technical Phone Support
As a current student located within the continental United States, you have the option of scheduling a live chat session with me in order to discuss any lesson-related questions on the phone through my toll-free number. Live chat sessions can be scheduled any time between the hours of 10:00 AM and 10:00 PM Central U.S. time from Monday through Sunday.
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Charlie Banacos - August 11, 1946 - December 8, 2009
Lessons With Charlie - By Cliff Engel
On December 8, 2009, the music community lost, Charlie Banacos, one of its most legendary and beloved educators. For the past half-century, Charlie was music instructor nonpareil. Although a pianist who specialized primarily in jazz education, the concepts and techniques Charlie taught were practically universal in application because his methods transcended any single instrument or musical style. Charlie's roster of students featured a distinguished list of award-winning virtuosos. Bassists including Jeff Berlin, Alain Caron, and Jimmy Earl are just a few of the world-renowned musicians to have studied with Charlie. Many of today's best up-and-coming jazz artists either studied with Charlie or with one of his long-time students.
My career as a musician could be split into two different eras, B.C. (Before Charlie) and A.C. (After Charlie). I had the privilege of studying with Charlie for nearly six years spanning from 1994-1999. While attending a summer session at Berklee College of Music in 1993, I was introduced to Charlie's teachings through a number of his students who were studying privately with him while they were also enrolled at Berklee and the New England Conservatory of Music. After that summer session ended, I returned home to pursue a degree in music performance on acoustic upright bass from Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas because I didn't have the financial resources, like most other students, required to study at Berklee and live in Boston on a full-time basis. By the end of the first semester of my freshman year, I was very disappointed with the little information I had been taught. The music department at FHSU was so small that it didn't employ even a part-time bass instructor so I, along with all of the other string majors at that time, had to take lessons under the direction of a violinist who did nothing more than assign me a page of Simandl exercises every week.
If I was ever going to take my playing to the next level, I knew I had to get lessons from Charlie. I didn't know if I had much of a chance at becoming one of Charlie's students because Charlie maintained an extremely lengthy waiting list that at any point could be two or more years deep. People would regularly commute for hours from neighboring cities and states in order to attend a 30-minute private lesson with Charlie. I have even heard stories of how some people would fly in periodically from different countries in order to study with Charlie in his local studio. I sent Charlie a copy of my audition tape that I used to gain admittance to Berklee, and a week later I received a letter from him outlining the different areas he thought he could help me strengthen. One of the most notable characteristics that made Charlie a brilliant instructor was his ability to analyze short excerpts of your playing and immediately recognize the weaknesses requiring the most work. He would then assign the perfect homework for you to solidify those areas of your playing.
Over the next six years, I would continue to receive a new lesson from my mentor every two weeks consisting of notated exercises and a cassette tape where he would instruct me on how to practice the lesson material, and he would also outline some additional assignments to record and send to him for critique. Charlie was the first instructor that I ever had who was truly dedicated to the art of teaching music and wasn't teaching just to make a few extra dollars on the side to supplement his performance income like many other instructors. Also, unlike most bass teachers today who spend too much time tabbing the favorite licks and songs of their students, Charlie taught real music and the components that go into making that music. For homework, I would record a few of the exercises he had notated for me in different keys along with a solo over a jazz standard to demonstrate the assimilation of those concepts into real musical application. In addition to recording some of the exercises and a solo with each lesson, Charlie also had me transcribing solos by horn players and pianists. While he certainly advocated the study of bass solos if you were a bassist, we actually spent the vast majority of our lesson time analyzing the lines of players such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Stitt, Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, and McCoy Tyner.
Charlie's lessons were addictive. I can remember waiting anxiously by the mailbox every two weeks for a new lesson to arrive because I knew it was going to be overflowing with real musical content. On every cassette tape in each lesson, I was greeted by Charlie with his heavy Boston accent, "hey Cliff, what's up man, what's happening out there in Kansas!" Listening to Charlie's voice on the cassette tapes always brought a smile to my face and you couldn't help but be inspired and motivated by his positive energy and encouraging words. His knowledge of jazz improvisation was unparalleled, and he always had classic stories to share about famous musicians which I still often think about. In one particular conversation, we were discussing his packed teaching schedule, and I will never forget him telling me how he only slept for a few hours each night before getting up early every morning to repeat a cycle that lasted for many years. He rarely took days off and even taught on the holidays including Christmas.
Charlie's lessons were intense and could be extremely time consuming if you were to fully integrate his concepts into your own playing. Following my freshman year of college, I quit school until 1998 in order to concentrate solely on Charlie's methods because I knew I would acquire more knowledge from Charlie in one year of private lessons than in four years at the local college. I learned more in the first lesson I had with Charlie than I did in the entire first semester of my freshman year in college. I could spend 4-5 hours per day, 7 days per week just practicing Charlie's techniques, and I would often still feel that I wasn't spending enough time on his material. From lesson #1, Charlie had me practicing everything in every key, and he also made me learn every exercise using two or three different sets of fingerings/shifts so I would be forced to internalize the music and not just memorize a set of fingering sequences or patterns/shapes on the fingerboard. Transposition to all 12 keys is something I have continued to advocate to my students ever since I studied with Charlie, and I think of him every time one of my students asks, "you mean I should learn this in EVERY key?" Charlie also got me into writing solos using his techniques in standard notation and singing solos over changes before attempting to play them on bass. Even though he was a pianist, Charlie recognized that bassists often play phrases based upon the physical design and limitations inherent to the instrument. He always stressed the importance of thinking in terms of notes because I needed to break the bad habit I had formed prior to our lessons of playing the same old patterns I had spent years reinforcing through repetition and muscle memory on the fingerboard. One of the many things I have been able to notice as I have gone back over the years to compare those recordings I made B.C. with those recordings made A.C. is that I no longer sounded like a typical bass player who just runs scale patterns up and down the fingerboard in a haphazard fashion while soloing. The phrasing within the solos gradually became more fluid and horn-like. Now, every time I take a solo, I think of Charlie and all the ways his guidance improved my playing. My only regret is that I didn't continue studying with Charlie for a longer period of time because I eventually returned to college on a full-time basis to finish the degree I had started several years earlier.
Before I started studying with Charlie, I fully intended to obtain a degree in bass performance and tour as a professional musician, but Charlie's dedication to teaching inspired me to become an instructor. Since 2000, I have taught hundreds of bassists through my correspondence lessons and the internet. I have often wondered what I would be doing now had I not been introduced to Charlie Banacos because had I never studied with him, I probably never would have pursued a career in teaching, or at the very least, I certainly wouldn't take it as seriously as I do today. Through the thousands of students that studied with Charlie over the past several decades, his legacy will continue to influence and inspire other music teachers and students for generations to come.
Charlie's Obituary From The Boston Globe
Jazz guru Charlie Banacos, 63, of Gloucester, Massachusetts passed away Dec. 8, 2009 following a brief battle with cancer. He was a pianist, composer, author, and educator, concentrating on jazz. He created over 100 courses of study for improvisation and composition. His concepts of teaching and his courses have influenced educators since the late 1950's. He is the original author of courses named "Hexatonics," "Intervallics," "Tetratonics," "Superimpositions," "Harps," "Overlaps," "Bitonal Pendulums," "Double Mambos," "Twenty-Third Chords," "Tonal Paralypsis," and "Triad Pairs" among others. These and many of his other terms for his courses have become part of the basic lexicon in jazz education. The ear training methods he devised specifically for the improvising musician are imitated in college courses and ear training routines by many educators around the world. His exercises have been used at such institutions as Berklee College of Music, The New School, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, Longy School of Music among others. At the time of his death, Mr. Banacos was in the process of consolidating many of his courses along with the assistance of his daughter, pianist Barbara Banacos. When guitarist Mike Stern showed his employer, Miles Davis, some of Banacos' ear training exercises, Davis stated "I know that Banacos. Give me his telephone number. I'm gonna get me some lessons." Michael Brecker once said of Banacos "He's some kind of genius." His students have performed or recorded with Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, David Liebman, Wayne Shorter, Michael Brecker, and Joe Henderson, among others. His students and musical associates include Mike Stern, Danilo Perez, Wayne Krantz, Jeff Berlin, Garry Dial, Gerard D'Angelo, Vic Juris, Daryl Rhodes, Michael Brecker, Jerry Bergonzi, Marilyn Crispell, Leni Stern, and Rachel Z among many others.
My career as a musician could be split into two different eras, B.C. (Before Charlie) and A.C. (After Charlie). I had the privilege of studying with Charlie for nearly six years spanning from 1994-1999. While attending a summer session at Berklee College of Music in 1993, I was introduced to Charlie's teachings through a number of his students who were studying privately with him while they were also enrolled at Berklee and the New England Conservatory of Music. After that summer session ended, I returned home to pursue a degree in music performance on acoustic upright bass from Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas because I didn't have the financial resources, like most other students, required to study at Berklee and live in Boston on a full-time basis. By the end of the first semester of my freshman year, I was very disappointed with the little information I had been taught. The music department at FHSU was so small that it didn't employ even a part-time bass instructor so I, along with all of the other string majors at that time, had to take lessons under the direction of a violinist who did nothing more than assign me a page of Simandl exercises every week.
If I was ever going to take my playing to the next level, I knew I had to get lessons from Charlie. I didn't know if I had much of a chance at becoming one of Charlie's students because Charlie maintained an extremely lengthy waiting list that at any point could be two or more years deep. People would regularly commute for hours from neighboring cities and states in order to attend a 30-minute private lesson with Charlie. I have even heard stories of how some people would fly in periodically from different countries in order to study with Charlie in his local studio. I sent Charlie a copy of my audition tape that I used to gain admittance to Berklee, and a week later I received a letter from him outlining the different areas he thought he could help me strengthen. One of the most notable characteristics that made Charlie a brilliant instructor was his ability to analyze short excerpts of your playing and immediately recognize the weaknesses requiring the most work. He would then assign the perfect homework for you to solidify those areas of your playing.
Over the next six years, I would continue to receive a new lesson from my mentor every two weeks consisting of notated exercises and a cassette tape where he would instruct me on how to practice the lesson material, and he would also outline some additional assignments to record and send to him for critique. Charlie was the first instructor that I ever had who was truly dedicated to the art of teaching music and wasn't teaching just to make a few extra dollars on the side to supplement his performance income like many other instructors. Also, unlike most bass teachers today who spend too much time tabbing the favorite licks and songs of their students, Charlie taught real music and the components that go into making that music. For homework, I would record a few of the exercises he had notated for me in different keys along with a solo over a jazz standard to demonstrate the assimilation of those concepts into real musical application. In addition to recording some of the exercises and a solo with each lesson, Charlie also had me transcribing solos by horn players and pianists. While he certainly advocated the study of bass solos if you were a bassist, we actually spent the vast majority of our lesson time analyzing the lines of players such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Stitt, Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, and McCoy Tyner.
Charlie's lessons were addictive. I can remember waiting anxiously by the mailbox every two weeks for a new lesson to arrive because I knew it was going to be overflowing with real musical content. On every cassette tape in each lesson, I was greeted by Charlie with his heavy Boston accent, "hey Cliff, what's up man, what's happening out there in Kansas!" Listening to Charlie's voice on the cassette tapes always brought a smile to my face and you couldn't help but be inspired and motivated by his positive energy and encouraging words. His knowledge of jazz improvisation was unparalleled, and he always had classic stories to share about famous musicians which I still often think about. In one particular conversation, we were discussing his packed teaching schedule, and I will never forget him telling me how he only slept for a few hours each night before getting up early every morning to repeat a cycle that lasted for many years. He rarely took days off and even taught on the holidays including Christmas.
Charlie's lessons were intense and could be extremely time consuming if you were to fully integrate his concepts into your own playing. Following my freshman year of college, I quit school until 1998 in order to concentrate solely on Charlie's methods because I knew I would acquire more knowledge from Charlie in one year of private lessons than in four years at the local college. I learned more in the first lesson I had with Charlie than I did in the entire first semester of my freshman year in college. I could spend 4-5 hours per day, 7 days per week just practicing Charlie's techniques, and I would often still feel that I wasn't spending enough time on his material. From lesson #1, Charlie had me practicing everything in every key, and he also made me learn every exercise using two or three different sets of fingerings/shifts so I would be forced to internalize the music and not just memorize a set of fingering sequences or patterns/shapes on the fingerboard. Transposition to all 12 keys is something I have continued to advocate to my students ever since I studied with Charlie, and I think of him every time one of my students asks, "you mean I should learn this in EVERY key?" Charlie also got me into writing solos using his techniques in standard notation and singing solos over changes before attempting to play them on bass. Even though he was a pianist, Charlie recognized that bassists often play phrases based upon the physical design and limitations inherent to the instrument. He always stressed the importance of thinking in terms of notes because I needed to break the bad habit I had formed prior to our lessons of playing the same old patterns I had spent years reinforcing through repetition and muscle memory on the fingerboard. One of the many things I have been able to notice as I have gone back over the years to compare those recordings I made B.C. with those recordings made A.C. is that I no longer sounded like a typical bass player who just runs scale patterns up and down the fingerboard in a haphazard fashion while soloing. The phrasing within the solos gradually became more fluid and horn-like. Now, every time I take a solo, I think of Charlie and all the ways his guidance improved my playing. My only regret is that I didn't continue studying with Charlie for a longer period of time because I eventually returned to college on a full-time basis to finish the degree I had started several years earlier.
Before I started studying with Charlie, I fully intended to obtain a degree in bass performance and tour as a professional musician, but Charlie's dedication to teaching inspired me to become an instructor. Since 2000, I have taught hundreds of bassists through my correspondence lessons and the internet. I have often wondered what I would be doing now had I not been introduced to Charlie Banacos because had I never studied with him, I probably never would have pursued a career in teaching, or at the very least, I certainly wouldn't take it as seriously as I do today. Through the thousands of students that studied with Charlie over the past several decades, his legacy will continue to influence and inspire other music teachers and students for generations to come.
Charlie's Obituary From The Boston Globe
Jazz guru Charlie Banacos, 63, of Gloucester, Massachusetts passed away Dec. 8, 2009 following a brief battle with cancer. He was a pianist, composer, author, and educator, concentrating on jazz. He created over 100 courses of study for improvisation and composition. His concepts of teaching and his courses have influenced educators since the late 1950's. He is the original author of courses named "Hexatonics," "Intervallics," "Tetratonics," "Superimpositions," "Harps," "Overlaps," "Bitonal Pendulums," "Double Mambos," "Twenty-Third Chords," "Tonal Paralypsis," and "Triad Pairs" among others. These and many of his other terms for his courses have become part of the basic lexicon in jazz education. The ear training methods he devised specifically for the improvising musician are imitated in college courses and ear training routines by many educators around the world. His exercises have been used at such institutions as Berklee College of Music, The New School, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, Longy School of Music among others. At the time of his death, Mr. Banacos was in the process of consolidating many of his courses along with the assistance of his daughter, pianist Barbara Banacos. When guitarist Mike Stern showed his employer, Miles Davis, some of Banacos' ear training exercises, Davis stated "I know that Banacos. Give me his telephone number. I'm gonna get me some lessons." Michael Brecker once said of Banacos "He's some kind of genius." His students have performed or recorded with Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, David Liebman, Wayne Shorter, Michael Brecker, and Joe Henderson, among others. His students and musical associates include Mike Stern, Danilo Perez, Wayne Krantz, Jeff Berlin, Garry Dial, Gerard D'Angelo, Vic Juris, Daryl Rhodes, Michael Brecker, Jerry Bergonzi, Marilyn Crispell, Leni Stern, and Rachel Z among many others.
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Live Video Bass Lessons
Using the latest video conferencing technology, we can conduct live, one-on-one video bass lessons from the most remote places on earth at an extremely affordable rate. Why waste transit time and money on gas while driving to and from lessons when you can study bass right from your home?
These live video bass lessons work perfectly to demonstrate various techniques including the proper mechanics of right and left hand technique as well as slapping and tapping techniques. Other subject areas that we may cover in our live video bass lessons include classical and jazz music theory, sight reading, ear training, bass line construction, soloing, jazz improvisation, chordal techniques, harmonics, fingerstyle funk, altered tunings, and concepts for solo bass playing.
In addition to the live video, you will also be e-mailed all of the exercises we cover during the lesson in standard notation and/or tablature along with any applicable play-alongs.
For more information, please visit: Cliff Engel's Live Video Bass Lessons.
These live video bass lessons work perfectly to demonstrate various techniques including the proper mechanics of right and left hand technique as well as slapping and tapping techniques. Other subject areas that we may cover in our live video bass lessons include classical and jazz music theory, sight reading, ear training, bass line construction, soloing, jazz improvisation, chordal techniques, harmonics, fingerstyle funk, altered tunings, and concepts for solo bass playing.
In addition to the live video, you will also be e-mailed all of the exercises we cover during the lesson in standard notation and/or tablature along with any applicable play-alongs.
For more information, please visit: Cliff Engel's Live Video Bass Lessons.
