Know Your Bass Fretboard

Know Your Bass Fretboard – Lessons For Bass Guitar Series…

This bass guitar lesson is for beginners

A map to the treasure… unlocking your bass fingerboard (also known as the bass fretboard).

This lesson is all about memorizing the fingerboard; with repetition, you will recognize the landscape of your bass and have mastery over the notes you choose to play.

I refer to this exercise as Say it and Play it, which is a slow methodical approach to mapping out the neck in a way that we can easily find our way around.

• Make sure to tune your bass – this is so important for this lesson because as we say the notes aloud, we have to have an accurate pitch associated with the name of the note we are calling out.
• Start every exercise on the open string – play step-wise up the neck (fret by fret) verbalizing each note, as you make your way to the 12 fret.
• Use one finger on each hand – this is more about learning the notes rather than a finger exercise.
• The best practice I have found for this is to play ascending 7x in a row and then descending 7x, as well as using the  sharps on the way up and saying the flats on the way down.
• Take notice of which notes do not have a sharp or a flat between them [EF-CB], this way you will be prepared as you work up and down the neck
• Most importantly play slowly, verbalize each note and look for landmarks on the neck to help guide you.

Good luck getting to know your bass fretboard!

Contact Steve Rosati at stevethebassguy@yahoo.com