Tips to Help You Understand the Bass Fretboard

Understanding the bass fretboard is crucial to themight be able to tell what key a particular song is
way you play and the creativity that goes intowritten in by trying to play along and noticing
your improvisations. The best bass players cancommonalities in certain music.
put their finger on a random fret and tell you theAnother helpful tool is to learn the notes that are
name of the note in under half a second. That isin certain chords. While you may not have to
an essential part of the top bass performers andknow the chords or notes that a lead player
part of dramatically improving the way you play.would need to play, you can take variations of
Learning the fretboard is not as difficult as it maychords, and play the foundation notes of those
seem at first glance. There are several tips thatchords to accompany or arpeggio. For example, a
are helpful, and patience is needed, especially ifC chord is comprised of the notes C, E, and G.
you don't know that much about reading music.Any of those notes would sound acceptable as a
Since the bass is an accompaniment instrument,bass accompaniment to that chord. By studying
there is a little more room for forgiveness. Beingchord compositions, you will learn certain bass
in the right key is essential and most of the time,fretboard tricks to make it easier to write your
you will be writing your own basslines, as opposedown basslines to songs.
to learning tabs and chord charts.If you can read music, learning the bass fretboard
Understanding your bass fretboard starts with theis much easier and it is a matter of locating the
basic notes in an octave of music, which maynotes on the fretboard and relating the sound to
repeat itself once on the largest fretboards, for athe note. Knowing scales and chord composition
total of 2 octaves or 24 notes. The basic notes inmakes it much easier to improvise, and practice
music are A, B, C, D, E, F and G. From there youcan make it effortless to improve your bass
have sharps or flats that are variations of thefretboard performance.
notes either a little low for the note or high forThanks to the Internet, there are many helpful
the note. As an example, an A#, which is a littletips online regarding learning the bass fretboard,
high for an A, is also called a B flat, which is a littleand some of them offer free lessons, videos,
low for a B, depending on whether the music youdiagrams and other helpful learning tools to
are playing has flats or sharps. Knowing the notesmaster the bass fretboard. Many bass guitar
and how to play scales is important.players may be self-taught or "play by ear". Once
The next tip on learning your bass fretboardyou understand notes, scales and chords, it
would be to learn and memorize one string at amakes you more knowledgeable on variations you
time. This breaks it down into easier steps, andcan try to improve a song and your performance.
you should spend at least a week or more onBass fretboard patterns may involve sweep
each string just learning how to locate a certainpicking by learning the 3 note per string rock or
note, what the name of the note is and how itblues bass patterns or learning runs, licks and lead
sounds by ear. By starting with an open string,lines. Learning the chords and arpeggio patterns
and working your way up the bass fretboard onecan give you variations of bass fretboard skills
note at a time, you will easily be able to name theand the more you learn about different patterns,
note, know what it sounds like, and move ontothe more individualized your sound will become.
the next note.Tips to help you understand a bass fretboard are
After you have learned each of the 24 notes in aonly as good in theory as they are in practice.
two octave bass fretboard, you will want to startThat is the most important tip of all-practice,
practicing to CD's and see if you can hear thepractice, practice!
chords change in the music. As you practice, you