Bass guitar fretboard notes pdf

This common scale is used not only in blues, but also in rock, metal, jazz and many other musical styles.

It comprises 7 notes 8 including the octave , spaced: whole tone, whole tone, semitone, whole tone, whole tone, whole tone, semitone. On the bass fretboard, adjacent frets are a semitone apart.

Therefore a whole tone interval means skipping a fret. You can download and print a pdf version of the bass scales chart by clicking here or on the image above. The chart can be printed on a single piece of paper and will make a useful reference for the wall of your practice room. Having a good knowledge of bass scales is an useful skill for a bass guitarist.

Scales are used in writing basslines, in improvisation and in songwriting. Our Bass Scales Backing Tracks album contains a selection of tracks, each of which allows you play along using a specific scale. Use the tracks to invent bass lines or to improvise bass solos. See more information and hear sample tracks on this page. Our Bass Modes Backing Tracks album contains tracks that allow you to experiment with modal scales.

Modal scales are scales derived from the major scale, with each one having its own individual sound. Our backing tracks will help you learn and master modes on your bass guitar.

From a beginner perspective, having too many options makes things complicated. On the other hand, for those who master the fretboard, the nature of the guitar layout enhances the expressive and musical possibilities. But don't worry, you'll see some strategies useful to tame the fretboard complexity. One good mental trick useful to understand the fretboard, is to consider every string like a distinct piano keyboard , that starts from the respective note.

Given the piano keyboard - strings analogy, it's easier to explain the standard guitar tuning. First of all, we need to have at least the E lowest string tuned with the aid of a tuner device.

This give us a standard reference coherent with other musicians. Then we can tune the other strings using the previous string as a reference. We said that the fifth string has to be an A note.

This video shows you clearly how to tune your guitar. Not it's time to talk about a bit just a bit music theory. In western music, the minimum distance between two notes is called half-step or semitone.

A distance of 2 half-steps is called whole step. On the piano keyboard, the distance between the keys white or black is 1 half-step. If we look again at the piano keyboard, we can see that there is a black key between each pair of white keys, except for the space between the B and C keys , and the E and F keys.

So here's the first important thing to notice:. On the fingerboard, we have not black or white keys, but we have frets. Let's look at the C Major Scale on the guitar neck. As previously said before, we have different options for playing a given scale.

This time, for visualization convenience, I've chosen to start from the first fret of the B string , that is a C, and play the scale horizontally on the same string , in order to visualize better the steps and half-steps structure:.

In music theory, there are two symbols that, when applied to a note, change its pitch and its name. They are called sharps and flats:. For example, a D flat is a D note lowered by 1 half-step, while a C sharp is a C note raised by 1 half-step. D flat and C sharp have different names, but they have the same pitch. On the guitar fretboard, they are placed on the same fret!

You'll learn why the same fret can have different names in future lessons, technically this topic is called " enharmonics ", but don't worry for now. Let's now introduce the chromatic scale , a scale composed of 12 half-steps required for going from a note to the same note 1 octave above.

The C chromatic scale is the following:. Playing the chromatic scale on the fretboard is straightforward because you only have to play one fret after the other. Notice that between the lowest C and the higher C there are 12 frets , or 12 half-steps. Beginners guitars players usually memorize only the notes on the sixth and fifth strings , because they have learned bar chords shapes and they need to find the root note of the chords.

Starting from this knowledge, it's possible to exploit the fretboard geometry to find notes on the other strings. In the following diagrams I'll show you the so called octave intervals : starting from a given notes, you can find the same note on the higher strings, 1 or 2 octaves above. This is a great visual aid that helps you find your notes quickly. Octaves will be also useful when you'll approach guitar triads and chord inversions.

Here is a comprehensive diagram with the octaves linked together. Practice and memorize these geometric relationships, as they are an invaluable tool for navigating the fretboard effortlessly.

The best way to memorize the natural notes on any string is to start out just playing and naming a few notes and progressively adding 1 note at a time. Also notice where the notes are in relation to the fret markers usually at the frets 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12 also 15, 17, 19, At the 12th fret, the note is the same as the open string only sounds higher. This is called an octave. Beyond the 12th fret the names of the notes just repeat.

While this is a scale study and not necessarily a music theory lesson, there are a couple of things that are beneficial for you to know: Enharmonic Equivalent: Essential the same note, usually an altered note, has two names. For example, G and Ab G sharp and A flat is the exact same note hence the name, they are harmonically equal. The name depends on what key the scale is being played in.

There is no scale step between B and C, nor between E and F. So it is extremely rare to see music that has B , Cb, E or Fb written in it.

The notes are Harmonic Equivalents. Typically, musicians would call this a Db scale, because there are less notated accidentals altered tones than in the C spelling of this scale. As its name implies, it only uses five tones. Plus, it sounds great! Use the E minor pentatonic scale when soloing over 12 Bar blues in either E major or E minor, it works equally well over both.

Start with quarter notes at a moderate tempo and play the scales ascending and descending. Then try playing two eighth notes per note of the scale using alternate picking down-up , then triplets and so on. Try speeding up the tempo at bit at a time as you get more comfortable playing these scales.

And you can try slower tempos as well.