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BASS GUITAR SECRETS! HOME STUDY COURSE
Discover the CG-X System to Playing Killer Performance Grade
Bass Lines Right Off the Top of Your Head Every Time
The All-Essential
Beginners Bass-ics
BASS GUITAR SECRETS! VOLUME 1
Home Study Course
2005 Alex Sampson / Bass Guitar Tips

14781 Memorial Drive, Suite #1067, Houston. TX. 77079
http://www.BassGuitarTips.com
Phone 217.636.4248
Preface
Preface to the CG-X System
Warning This is NOT your average off-the-shelf learn to play bass guitar
book. Were going to be going a lot deeper than This is an A Minor progression
Heres an example of the groove Good luck!
I have come to believe that there is an inner game and several missing links to
becoming a better bassist that goes miles beyond learning a few scales and learning
to play in time.
In my experience however, many times the 17 35 page crash-course bookshelf

books, while most times very useful, dont even hint at this inner game.
I know because I have a bookshelf filled with DVDs, Cassette tapes, Books, pocket
guide etc. etc. etc. and Id bet that you may have had your fair share as well.
If youve ever wondered whether or not there is something more in the mix when;
1) You hear a bassist that flat out wows you

2) No matter how hard you try you simply cant seem to come up with ideas
for bass lines that you truly feel proud of
3) You meet someone who simply seems to have a knack for creating
countless irresistible bass lines for just about anything they try to play
The answer is a resounding YES!
There is an inner game and after chasing after it, researching it and studying
outstanding players for years people hundreds of times better than I am I am
convinced that I have discovered some guarded secrets about electric bass playing
that can propel your playing as it has for thousands of hobbyist musicians and band
members around the world including myself.
What makes Bass Guitar Secrets! truly unique, apart from the CG-X approach, is
that in addition to the mechanics of playing we will attempt to address this inner
game And some times that will mean simply sitting, reading and dedicating some
serious THOUGHT to a lesson. All I ask is that you give it a try and some conscious
effort.
However I give you my word It will never be boring and in a much reduced time
it WILL most certainly be largely responsible for triggering off a new kind of
explosive growth in your playing that blind practice alone never has and never
will achieve for you.
BASS GUITAR SECRETS - MODULE 1: BEGINNERS BASSICS
Introduction
An Important Introduction
Hi and welcome to the Bass Guitar Secrets! - Home Study Course. My name is
Alex Sampson and Ill be your server this afternoon and to start off I'd like to
sincerely thank you for deciding to give the course a fair and open minded try and
must say 'My, what good taste you have in picking bass manuals '
But really, all fun and jokes aside, I honestly do tip my hat to you and it's not because
I succeeded in desperately trying to separate you from your money... On the
contrary!
I know that you have a goal in mind and that goal involves you becoming a far more
proficient bassist... One who can ditch his/her tab dependency, hear a song play and
come up with numerous professional sounding bass lines that are yours...
Bass lines that get people moving... Bass lines that pack a punch and give you a great
feeling of satisfaction and healthy pride to know that you did that!
And (even though I might sound a little biased) I am 110% convinced that the CG-X
system is exactly what you are looking for!
So I tip my hat to you because you know what you want!
I tip my hat to you because you were able to see in Bass Guitar Secrets! a tool
that will help you achieve that goal, but most of all...
I tip my hat to you because not only do you clearly know what you want and
saw a way to start moving towards that, but unlike the average human you were able
to logically bring those two things together, make a firm DECISION and get started
DOING something about it!
And that is a God-honest, commendable trait in any arena, on any stage on any
planet in the universe.
...Knowing what you want, finding a way to accomplish it and taking real active steps
to getting it! -- For this I assure you that you will not be disappointed.
All the work has been done here laying out a useable, reliable and results-producing
plan for you to follow to jumpstart your bass playing capabilities - All you need to
add now is commitment and action.
You have the system in your hands now my only prayer is that you commit to
putting it into action.
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I'm sorry to say but despite how much I believe in the step-by-step method I present
here... Despite how many thousands of people get their hands on this same system,
use it, get significant results from it, rave about it, tell their friends about it... There is
now only one person standing between you now and the bass player you want
to be and, that person is you! - And you have to recognize and be willing to
accept responsibility for that!
You have to realize that reading is a passive action... It does nothing more than make
you aware of what is possible... You my friend have got to put what you learn into
consistent action to see the growth that you are looking for.
There is no doubt about it... The material you now own has the potential to change
your life and take you that much closer to becoming the bass player you want to be...
How much closer is now totally up to you.
Potential means nothing... Potential is like a promissory note and you don't cash out
till you actually do the work required.
So I beg you to be consistent... To practice often... To practice daily... To listen to as

much music as you can because you're now trying afresh to learn a language and that
means you gotta speak it (play) and hear it spoken (listen) every day you possibly can.
And as you do so, remember we all start with an empty glass...
All your bass heroes, with all the fantastic things they can now do weren't always that
good. There was a day when they first picked up a bass and while some of them may
have had a natural knack for the instrument by far MOST of them totally sucked
at it.
But get this... In my mind, there isnt an ounce of difference between talent that
comes from someones natural knack and the talent that comes as a result of
consistent, diligent and focused work.
When the rubber hits the road, 'talent and skill' is 'talent and skill'.
If in fact there is one that is better than the other, I beg to say that it is the skill
earned where there was none apparent before!
Just look at Michael Jordan.
Arguably the greatest basketball player in the history of the world to set foot on a
court... Yet he got dogged by his early coaches, got told to tryout for other sports
and to forget about ever playing basketball altogether All because apparently the
natural knack wasnt there.
Well I got news for you bucko. That couldn't matter less!
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In his prime, when he got on the court, natural talent or not the man was an
imagination-bending ball wizard. All 9 other players on the court instantly became
extras in a movie he starred in, and it had nothing to do with him being selfish. It
had to do with the FACT that he was simply ten times better and ten times more
hard working than most anyone else on the court.
All because privately he did the work. He did the work consistently and he did the
work on the fundamentals. Fundamentals are the fiber of genius!
So we are going to be covering some fundamentals that some of you will think about
skipping through Please dont!!
I do things a bit differently here and youd find some explanations a bit unorthodox,
but (I believe) highly effective! And the way we see it, Bass Guitar Secrets! is going
to be used by bassist all over the world, at ALL different levels So while I cant
possibly cover everything youll ever need to know about playing performance level
bass its totally unfair to skip through stuff that would be considered boring by
some users.
Thatd be like starting to watch a movie from the middle out. So to be fair, the
only place we can start is at the beginning.
That said I also need to stress that Bass Guitar Secrets! is not the be all and end all
of your bass education... That should be obvious but I still have to say it.
We are all still learning... And the humble way I see it is that I am still a mere babe
compared to the likes of the larger-than-life-giants we all know and love, and as
such there is so much more to get and so much more to practice that I'll never be
done But I will enjoy the journey.
I hope you see things this way too...
Congrats my friend, here's where the road begins or re-begins for you... Sit up, grab
the wheel with both hands and enjoy the heck outta the ride!
Alex Sampson
Bass Guitar Secrets
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Lesson
Know Your Bass

1
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Well quickly go over the main components of your ax starting from the top, moving
on down the instrument.
Up top weve got the headstock and on the head itself we have the tuning machinery
used for tuning your instrument. (Go figure!)
That machinery is made up of the Tuning pegs, (that the strings are directly attached to)
and the Tuning Heads (that you adjust to turn the pegs.)
Its a good idea to let the strings wrap around the pegs at least 2 to
as many as 4 times
Not just once, as this helps to hold the tuning of the string better
and ensure that the string doesnt gradually slip out of tune as
much.
Your headstock would also be crafted so that your tuning heads are
either all on one side
Or divided so that some are on the upper side of the head and
some are on the lower side
When attaching strings to the pegs, you want to do it so that each string loops
in a clockwise direction around the upper pegs And in a counter clockwise
direction around the lower pegs.
After you mount a set of new strings and are about to tune up it also good practice
to tighten and release the strings to stretch them out a bit. (This also helps prevent
gradual slippage.)
Moving on down from the headstock, just before we get onto the fretboard, we
come across something of a notched spacing guide that holds the strings in place just
before your fret board begins This little insignificant part is called the nut and
trust me You dont want to hear a bass played with a sucky nut.
If your strings start touching the fretboard at the first few frets or youre getting
nasty fret buzz, one of the first culprits to check is your nut. The grooves may have
become worn.
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Next of course we have your fretboard/fingerboard and this of course refers to the
entire layer of wood and raised metal bars mounted onto the neck of your bass.
A bit about necks We have them in all different lengths and widths
Most commonly we have necks ranging from 34 inches to 36 inches long (of course
shorter and longer as well but no need for you to start gathering I told you so points just yet) and
again generally speaking we have necks mounted with a range of different numbers
of frets
Commonly 22 to 24 frets are what youd find in most music stores but then of
course we have instruments with 26 frets like the Yamaha signature John Patitucci
(TRB JP2) model. Ive even seen an ax on eBay with 36 frets over a 41 inch neck.
(Yikes!)
We also have different types of necks that are named based on how they are attached
to the body of the bass. You have necks that can go straight through the body of the
instrument where the neck and most/all of the body are made from one piece of
wood.
We refer to these basses as neck-through-body basses and usually these give you
longer sustained notes. The alternative to neck-throughs are bolt-ons where the
neck is made as a separate piece and literally bolted on to the body.
Usually neck-throughs cost a bit more than their bolt-on counterparts. So youd
find that if you have two options in the same instrument (For example the Yamaha TRB
IIs come in both neck-through and bolt-on options) generally speaking the one that carries
a neck-through design is more expensive.
Exiting the neck, onto the body of the bass, wed run across your pick-ups and of
course your control knobs. Now sometimes its the basic stuff that eludes us so just a
couple things on some basics.
You walk into a music store and youd come across two main category of electric
basses. We have passive instruments and active instruments. And basically what that
tells you, is whether or not the bass has its own internal pre-amplification.
So if you have a passive instrument it means that the sound that is produced by the
strings vibrating going through the pick-up, is not amplified in your instrument itself
it just passes those signals directly into the amplifier and it is up to your amplifier to
interpret how it is going to amplify those sounds.
With an active instrument however, there is a certain amount of signal boosting the
instrument does on its own, and generally speaking you usually have a wider range of
tone shaping capabilities and a brighter sound.
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A passive instrument usually sounds a little bit warmer, a little bit woodier. Now
these are pretty open statements, because youre going to have instruments on either
side of the fence that crosses these boundaries so to speak.
But, generally speaking passive instruments are a bit warmer and woodier. Needless
to say some people swear by passive instruments and will live and die by them, some
swear by active instruments.
Its all up to your taste and to a certain degree the type of music youre into. (For
example, if you do a lot of two hand tapping and/or slap and pop you may be a big fan of active
basses, since they generally produce more output with the same playing force, then youll just as easily
find straight ahead jazz musicians who wouldnt play an active instrument if it meant death by
hanging.)
Again its up to your listening and playing taste. Its probably best to work backwards
and find an artist whose sound you really like a lot and see what type of gear they
pack.
To make a quick mention of one more important component, you have your saddle
that holds the strings in place whereby a degree of adjustment can be made to your
guitars action (loosely translates to mean how high or low the string floats above the fretboard)
and your intonation (meaning how accurately similar notes in different positions on the
fretboard sound out to correct pitch.)
Backtracking a bit, something that is very common but that a lot of people dont
understand are the knobs on the bass guitar.
If you have one knob, basically all you have is volume control. If you have two
knobs youre probably packing a master volume control and a knob with some
degree of tone shaping capabilities.
More likely than not, this would be a passive instrument and your tone shaping
would be limited to how much you can cut the treble output of your instrument.
So the only tone shaping you can do is limited to seeing how much treble you have
(and its not so much that you can raise or boost your heights but that you can cut down the amount
it outputs.) So the instrument would come with a maximum level of treble and you
can cut down on that, as opposed to what an instrument with active circuitry would
allow an actual boosting of your treble level. There is a slight and subtle
difference but I hope you understand.
If you have three knobs, more than likely you have a volume control, one for treble
and lows or a volume control, a pan pot and one EQ knob.
Your pan pot is simply what operates like the balance button on your stereo set,
where you could direct sound more heavily to either the left or right speakers
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Only difference is that your pan pot allows you to switch between which of your
pick ups is doing more picking up. So you can pan/balance between your two pick
ups. (Yep, if you got one pick up on your bass chances are you dont have a pan pot).
If you have four buttons usually heres what you might find;
On a passive instrument you might have an individual volume control for each
pick up and an individual EQ knob for each pick up, so you would find that one
pair of buttons control the master volume and equalization for your neck pickup
and one pair controls the volume and equalization for the bridge pickup.
On an active instrument its probably one volume and 3 for equalization, (1 treble,
1 mid range and 1 bass) or perhaps one volume, 2 equalization knobs (1 treble, 1 bass)
and a pan pot.
If you have five buttons (and were just going to stop at five) youre going to find one
master volume, one pan pot, and then youre going to have a three band EQ (highs,
lows and mids).
Youre also going to find that there are different ways that your strings are attached
to the body of your bass guitar. Some folks have strings going through the back of
the body (inserted through the back and pulled through advantage again, longer sustain) then
some just attached directly to the saddle up front.
And thats just a bit of a blanket introduction. I just wanted to touch on some of the
basic parts and components in a light way before we got started in full.
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Lesson
Some Basic Tools

2
In addition to your ax every bassist needs to own at least;
1) A sturdy leather or nylon adjustable strap

2) 1 or 2 quality cables, preferably with gold plated tips
3) A functional digital tuner
4) A decent bass amp and
5) An accurate metronome and/or drum machine
Ill be showing you some pretty accurate methods to tune by ear, but even if you get
really good at it remember, tuning by ear remains a method that is relative
Using a working digital tuner on the other hand is absolute, and independent of you
having a bad ear day -- So youre gonna want to have a real digital tuner in your gig
bag at all times.
And on the topic of cables, (you know that by-the-way accessory no one pays much
attention to) As with anything else, you get what you pay for and even though
most people dont recognize it cables play a hugely important part in the quality of
music youre going to get coming out of your instrument. Yes! Some cables simply
deliver signals with lower hum and hiss levels than others, and some cables are out
right tougher and longer lasting.
I dont give a hoot if youre playing a $9,000 Fodera bass guitar If your cables
dont deliver a clean and dependable signal, (like if they start making those blood
curdling scratchy noises caused by a short-circuit), I aint listening to your playing
no more and you instantly get several point deductions on your score card. And lets
face it Cheap cables go bad real fast and usually very abruptly.
So next time youre at the music shop check out what itd put you back to lay your
claws on a couple of Planet Wave cables It should set you back anywhere
between $25 to $45 but should well be considered an investment in your sounding
good for a very long while. Those suckers can take a beating So long as you
dont use em to lasso cows or nothing, youre good to go for a long, long time.
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Lesson
Tuning Your Bass

3
Ok so lets talk about a couple quick and reliable methods for tuning your bass by
ear.
Again, unless youre using a tool like an electronic tuner, tuning by ear is relative,
rather than absolute. What that means of course is that two players can ear tune and
end up with tunings totally different Its just that one might have a better ear
than the other.
That aside, unless youre totally tone deaf, most everyone I know can get very
reasonable results tuning by ear, with a little practice. And relative or not, its quite
simply a flat out necessary skill to have as a string player.
The one small disadvantage is that both these methods require that you have at least
one string in tune, since youll be using that one tuned string to tune the others.
Thats why youd find both of these methods great for making quick adjustments to
your strings on stage or in the middle of a jam session as opposed to tuning up after
changing to a new set of strings.
TUNE BY EAR METHOD 1
The first method is one where we will be using the note played on the fifth fret of
each string to tune another.
For this you need to understand that the 5th fretted note on any string is always equal
to the string directly below it, played in the OPEN position -- If youre using a
standard tuning. (Standard tuning as defined in the diagrams below)
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So for example, if say youre playing a 4 string bass and your E-string (the 4th string, as
its standard practice to count from the bottom up) is already in tune and you were to play the
fifth note on that E string, you would have just played an A note
The string directly below your E-string (the 3rd string) when played OPEN (meaning of
course without fretting any notes) should also sound an A note of the same pitch.
So you can now use your E string (played at the 5th fret) to bring the A string (3rd
string) into tune Furthermore, the A string (played at the 5th fret) can be used to
bring the D-string (2nd string) into tune and so on. Its simply about matching the
sound of an open string note to its fretted equivalent.
(N.B. When playing your notes be sure to sound them by holding them down
firmly towards the center of the fret youre playing.)
This way, as long as you have one of your strings tuned you can work either
forwards or backwards to get the other strings in tune with it.
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TUNE BY EAR METHOD 2
The second method that youd want to use is where we tune our strings using
harmonics. (My personal by-ear favorite).
And if youre wondering what exactly harmonics are dont worry about it There
are different types of harmonics, both natural and artificial and its one of the things
we are going to be covering later on, since harmonics are a valuable tool in your
arsenal of playing techniques.
But for right now, think of a harmonic as is this;
If you were to lightly touch your finger onto any string directly above the fret
line (not towards the middle of the fret where youd normally play a note but directly above the
actual fret line itself) and play the string you would get a light chime-like sound ringing
from the bass.
That chime is what we call a harmonic. Its important that you dont press the string
hard enough to actually cause it to touch the fret board and as a valuable side-note
youd find that the easiest to sound natural harmonics are produced directly over the;
5th, 7th, 12th, 17th, 19th and 24th frets
So while these arent the only position you can sound harmonics at, youre going to
have very little problems sounding them well in these positions.
Ok so heres how youre going to use harmonics to tune your bass;
Again its a basic understanding of matching notes played on a tuned string to ones
played on the string youre trying to tune. In this case the 12th fret harmonic on any
string sounds the same note as the 7th fret harmonic on the string directly below it.
If I were to play a harmonic on the E-string at the 12th fret, I should be getting the
same note sounded if I were to play the 7th fret harmonic on the A string
(N.B. Playing a 12th fret harmonic means playing

exactly over the fretline that comes immediately *after* the 12th fret.)
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Playing the 12th fret harmonic on the A string produces the same chime as playing
the 7th fret harmonic on the D string, and so on and so on. Again, just use one string
to bring the other into as exact a matching as possible.
One of the reasons this harmonic method is pretty cool for tuning up is because
even after you play a harmonic and remove your finger from the string the note
continues sounding out.
This way you can actually play and have both strings you are
attempting to sync, ringing out at the same time, which is a fantastic
advantage to getting one tuned to the other.
(CD 1 Sound Sample 1)
MORE TUNING TIPS!
Now herere two (2) more general tips for tuning up either by ear or with a tuner.
Tip 1: You always want to tune up into your tuning, rather than down into your
tuning, and what that simply means is that if you are tuning your E-string and it is
currently above the pitch you want, it is better to slacken the string and carry it
down below the correct pitch first and then re-tighten the string up into correct
tune.
In other words you always want the last motion you make on the tuning pegs to
bring a string in tune to be a tightening movement.
Tip 2: And again, remember it a good idea to have the string looped around the
tuning pegs a good 2 - 4 times
Both of these tips are to help hold a more accurate tuning longer.
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Lesson
Getting Into Position

4
Were going to be talking a lot about the positioning of your hands, left and right
hand movement, the 1-finger per fret playing method and all that good stuff, but for
now lets talk a little bit about physical placement and how you actually hold the bass.
Now there are lots and lots of different ways that you can hold your bass and
ultimately its going to come down to comfort since bass players come in all shapes
and sizes :-) Some tall, some short, some chubby, some thin, so its going to come
down to how you are comfortable, but still there are some rules of thumb that you
can follow.
Hopefully youll find that you get best leverage in terms of playability, movement and
fewer shoulder cramps this way. (A lot of shoulder and neck pains are due not only to you
getting accustomed to your bass and its weight, but also to how you hold your instrument and
whether or not your posture is correct!)
So strapping your bass on Youll probably want to attach it so that the strings on
the instrument are almost directly over or just above your belly button, and the neck
makes a 45 degree angle up from your waistline.
Again, this is just a basic rule of thumb; youre going to find people doing it
differently. For example one of my personal bass heroes, John Patitucci, can be seen
from time to time using his strap a good deal shorter than most and so the bass is
strung up a little bit closer to his body than what we just expected (even though hes a
big guy).
Youd even see from time to time that he holds the bass as well almost at a 65 degree
(or greater) angle up from his waistline, till sometimes his bass is almost perpendicular
to his waistline.
Now I can only guess as to why he does that, but Id think its because of how much
double bass playing he does in addition to being an accomplished electric bassist.
Up next are some tips for left and right hand technique thatll do well to cut down
on cramps and to lend more fluidity to your playing. But before we go on to that I
would really advise against putting your bass down around your knees.
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Apart from being flat out ridiculous, whether or not you think it looks cool, having
your bass around your knees is just going to shoot your fluidity and fluency right
down the drain.
Theres no way on Gods green earth youre going to get the right hand posture that
gives you best economy and movement, if you have your bass down there so again
Try to have it where the strings are perhaps around the belly button area or a little bit
higher.
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Lesson
Right and Left Hand Technique

5
Ok this is a very important rant right here so pay close attention
First off, I totally believe in the 1fingerperfret method, which simply says that
when you find a position to start playing in, you assign your index finger to one fret,
your middle finger to the fret to the immediate right to it and so on and so on.
And just so you know, when we use the term position throughout this course I
mean any four fret span covered between your index to pinky fingers. These positions
are named based on wherever your index finger is placed. E.g. If your index finger is
at the 7th fret, you are playing in position 7.
Next important piece of advice about left hand posture is that youll also want to
play with your fingers curled, not flat, so that the notes are played (as much as its
practical) by the very tips of your fingers.
In other words if you were to put your left hand flat on a table and use a marker to
color the areas of your fingertips that are NOT touching the table youd have an idea
of the part of your fingers you should using to fret or play the notes again, as much
as is possible and feasible.
And generally speaking your left thumb should naturally fall into place at the back
of the neck where the inner joint of the thumb gently touches the back of the neck
in line with the middle finger.
Now if youre just getting started youll probably find that the muscles in your left
fretting hand starts giving you heck.
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Part of it is just in getting used to playing and sorry to say you wont be able to get
around that without sticking to it and doing proper warm up exercises, especially
when youre just getting started
However a lot more experienced players than youd think (who continue to
experience pain in between the thumb and index fingers) may actually be causing the
cramps themselves by putting too much tension with the thumb squeezing the back
of the neck.
So heres what I want you to try
If you find that youre having problems when youre playing in that your left hand is
cramping just between the thumb and index fingers, try to get the majority of the
pressure to come from the fretting fingers pressing down on the strings, rather than
from the thumb squeezing down on the back of the neck.
To be a little clearer heres what to practice
When youre doing any of the exercises that were going to come into shortly, try to
get used to playing them both with and without the thumb in back of the neck so
that you dont become overly dependant on the thumb squeezing down to play a
note with your fretting fingers.
Just totally remove the thumb altogether and see if you can play the notes with your
fretting fingers alone, so all of the force now comes from the muscles in your
forearm.
Eventually youll be able to put your thumb back to its position and play with it
begin more of a guiding support than a vice grip and thats almost 100% guaranteed
to ease up any perennial cramps you get in your left hand.
As far as your right hand or picking hand technique is concern you want the forearm
of your right hand to gently fall over the body of the instrument so that your entire
palm is just over the strings in the pick-up area of the body.
I personally play with the fingers of my right hand just slightly curved as well (seeing as
thats their truest natural position) and the plucking technique that we are going to be
focusing on is where you use your index and middle fingers of your right hand to
sound your notes by walking through and stroking the strings.
So what happens is that when your index finger plays a note, lets say it plays the D-
string (2nd string up from the bottom on your 4 string bass) it walks through the D-string
and is stopped when it hits the A string.
Now this in itself is something of a muting technique right there. (Something that were
going to cover in more details a bit lower down) As your fingers just alternate through
playing the strings, it also automatically lines up to silence the string above it.
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So what you want to practice is just that walking motion that allows you to play
straight through the string and lets your fingers stop on the string above the one
that you just played.
What do you do with your thumb?
Well basically there are two (2) ways to deal with the thumb on the picking hand.
One where it remains stationery (fixed thumb technique) and another where it moves
from string to string, (called the floating thumb technique).
Fixed Thumb Technique
Some people just allow the thumb to rest on top of their top most string, because
usually your lower stings give you a lot more of what is called open string resonance
and having your thumb there is a very effective method of working around that.
In case youre wondering, open string resonance is that vibration caused in lower
sounding, thicker strings (usually the B and E strings) - just as a messy by-product of
you playing naturally. Thats just the way it is You play other strings they vibrate
and if your pickups are pretty sensitive or you have you bass kinda loud, youre
gonna get other lower strings rumbling in response.
Sometimes you accidentally hit strings in natural motion, and guess what More
open string resonance.
Part of learning proper hand technique is learning to control this open string
resonance.
So this method works pretty well. Either by just letting your thumb finger rest on top
of your E string or have it placed so that the side of your thumb rests across all the
lower register strings that are not presently being played.
So, if youre playing a four string bass you have your thumb resting on the E and the
A strings anytime youre playing the D strings and the G strings.
Your index and middle fingers get to do the walking to actively pick notes, but your
thumb is just resting on top those trouble-maker strings keeping em quite as long as
youre not playing them. Whenever youre playing the lower strings, youre free of
course to lay the thumb on top of on of your pickups.
Secondly, as I mentioned before, plucking the strings with the walking motion we
spoke about before, in and of itself also allows for good resonance control.
Im hammering on this because as simple and as unimportant as it seems this is an

extremely crucial aspect of technique that you need to conquer.
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Its so very vital that you lock down on any extra noise that is NOT part of your
intended note because believe me, no matter how good your bass lines, if overall you
sound muddy youre shooting yourself in the foot.
And always remember;
A Note Is Only Defined By The Bit Of

*SILENCE* BEFORE And AFTER It.
If theres a lot of excess noise, you could have been playing for 20+ years, your
listener hears an amateur, and the groove youre trying to build, gets shattered.
Uncontrolled, wildfire noise is by and large a complete no-no.
So please bear with us I know this is kinda boring Technique is never

something that most folks want to focus on.
Its like in all those Kung Fu movies you see where the Shaolin Monk Master has his
apprentice doing all these menial and seemingly meaningless tasks The young
grasshopper is always thinking When do I get to kick some butt!
Well I swear The time you invest in learning proper technique will pay off in
spades for you sounding far crisper, and clearer And theres no way in the world
that could be bad. Even simple ideas will greater be appreciated.
Floating Thumb Technique
The form is this;- Your thumb is placed on your topmost string, (lets say its your low B
in this case talking about five and six string instruments) your pinkie finger goes on the E-
string, your ring finger goes on the A-string.
So, now you have this curved posture going on where three fingers are muting and
two are left for playing the higher strung strings (D, G, C-strings).
Anytime you need to play, lets say youre going down to play your high C, the entire
formation moves down a string, keeping that form in relation to each other. If you
need to play lower strings, the up the entire formation moves up. (Get it?)
But, what youd notice is that you always keep a curved hand. Something of a claw
shape and although it might be a bit tricky to get used to, it works really well because
it maintains the natural curvature of your hand.
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A Neat Bonus Muting Trick!
Thirdly of course, you can silence open strings by using a scrunchie (girls hair tie). If
youve ever seen technical super-monster Victor Wooten play, youd see he uses
these a lot.
It works really well when youre playing a lot of pop slap, if youre doing a lot of two
hand tapping, left hand only hammer-ons, (where you sound the note without the use of
your right hand) right hand ghost notes and so on.
So you just throw one of these elastic like scrunchies around the neck. Usually
youd keep it on just to the left of the nut, and anytime youre ready to use it just
slide it on down to say around the 3rd to 7th frets depending on how high up the neck
you plan on playing
Now later on, well get into dampening techniques where youre going for a
particular sound from your strings and thats totally different. What we were talking
about now is more about buzz control than dampening techniques if you will.
When we get into later lessons, well cover getting those funky, purposefully choked
staccato sounds outta your strings but lets not jump the gun.
Now therere more ways to control OSR but I think youre well equipped. Choose a
method that you feel comfortable with and master it. Again youll be glad you did!
Another big part of learning good technique that you need to know (concerning your left
and your right hand technique) is how to cross strings effectively.
5 Crucial Last Minute Tips
Were about to get into some practical exercises that will test your application of
what weve talked about so far and get going on some efficient string crossing but
I warn you I beg you
Tip 1: Practice every exercise with a metronome or drum machine! Every time you
practice something, practice it to a specific time, and were going to see why
when we talk about the role of the bass player in a little bit.
Very, very, very important. As best as you can never practice any of these just off the
top of your head once you have a time-keeper available.
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Tip 2: And again, when youre doing these exercises a valuable tip is to attempt to
practice them without your thumb even touching the neck of the instrument in any
way and when you feel comfortable doing them like that, then bring in the thumb.
Eventually youll find that you start depending less and less on the thumb to squeeze
the note and more on the notes being pushed down by the fretting fingers.
Tip 3: Always practice SLOWLY at first and work your way up in tempo
ONLY when youve perfected the exercise at a given tempo.
Theres a saying that practice makes perfect.
Well thats NOT entirely true. If you practice the wrong thing youll become perfect
alright But perfectly WRONG! The ONLY way, the best way and the most
discipline-requiring way to perfect perfection is to practice SLOWLY A heck of
A LOT slower than you CAN go.
And I can hear the collective whining already But Alex I can go so much faster than
this This is so slow and unchallenging Blah, blah, blah! So you speed up the tempo
and put yourself in no mans land fumbling like a wino on Friday night after bozo
hour.
I always try to do any work out at 50 bpm (sometimes even slower) on the metronome
until I can nail it to perfection... Then and only then do I up the tempo by 5 10
bpms max and work out there, again to perfection.
Never move on to a higher tempo without getting the exercise down pat at a slower
tempo first.
If you want to get as near perfect as possible you have to practice as perfectly as
possible, as many times as possible and if that means slowing it down till the exercise
is literally too easy then thats what youre going to do!
Again young grasshopper, if you ignore this advice youre the one whos gonna get
kicked in the butt by it. GO slow, go slow, go slow! Aim for crystal clear technique
NOT speed.
Tip 4: Watch yourself for everything we spoke about before. Lookout for the hand
positions we talked about, look out for OSR.
Heres something to try... Raise your bass volume a little higher than youd normally
play it and do the exercises. Now try to see just how much buzz you can eradicate
even at the higher volumes.
Tip 5: Always warm your fingers up with a little light finger work before you take on
the exercises or start jamming.
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Quick Warm-Up Exercises
Here are some quick warm ups for before you get into the heavy lifting
When you consider any type of muscular activity; running, jumping and so on you
would notice that athletes warm up before they get into any serious type of workout,
and likewise youre going to be making use of muscles here and it is good to warm
the muscles up before you get into any serious playing.
5a) Trying putting your hand under some warm running water to help warm them
muscles up.
5b) Heres another great and convenient warm up/finger control exercise you can do
without a bass at any time
Open your left hand to a flat palm then slowly fold in your index and ring fingers at
the same time till you can use your thumb to hold them down. Try to keep your
pinkie finger and your middle finger as straight out as possible.
Now slowly release these two and simultaneously bring in the other two fingers that
were not being held, so that youre now holding in your middle and pinkie fingers
while keeping your index and ring fingers outstretched.
Continue this holding and releasing motion until you can get it cleanly. You might
even want to practice this with a metronome and slowly speed it up.
This is actually an old piano players exercise some bassists use to warm up and its a
great way to warm up both left and right hands.
Ok, well thats it for your primer We talked about posture, bass parts, some things
to look out for in technique and now lets jump in.
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Lesson
Left/Right Hand Dexterity and Speed

6
In this lesson well go over a collection of very valuable exercises that will test
everything we spoke about so far.
There are just a few rules
1) Again, I stress, PLEASE go slowly at first till you got each one down pat. Its
better to work on clarity before speed. The latter comes automatically with time.
Set your metronome or drum machine on 55 60 bpm and sound each note as
precisely on the beat as possible. When youre really comfortable and as clean as you
think you can be, only then should you consider raising the tempo by 5 bpms MAX
and going through the entire process again.
2) Try to maintain at all times the walking picking motion of the right hand.
Especially look out for, and AVOID the urge to rake across the strings with one
finger when youre crossing two or more successive strings upward. If you have to
play the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings up from the bottom, dont just use your index
finger to play them all in one motion
The purpose of the exercises is to put work on the fingers to get them to play
interdependently and independently.
3) And finally here are the final two challenges with each exercise When you think
you have an exercise well within your grasp, try executing it without the use of your
right hand to pick the notes, and when you get really comfortable, without even
looking at the fretboard altogether.
The look-ma-no-eyes-and-no-picking-hand variation will really test how good your

left hand technique is, even if you have to raise your amp up a bit and go slow as
heck.
You should be able to sound the notes cleanly just with the fingers of your left hand.
If youre getting a ton of Open string resonance, try using a scrunchie at about the
3rd fret and take a careful look at if youre using just your finger tips.
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The cleaner you can strike the notes, the better they will sound. This is also an
excellent way to build the muscles in your left hand and increase you playing stamina.
All the exercises are geared towards increasing the independency, interplay, reach and
strength of each finger on your fretting hand. Practiced properly, the results should
be astounding.
Well use common tablature notation for ease of understanding among most players,
but well go a step further and include the left hand fingering below each note.
[1 = Index Finger ; 2 = Middle Finger ; 3 = Ring Finger ; 4 = Pinkie Finger]
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Exercise #1: Chach
This first exercise is one I evolved from the picking pattern I use
through a passage of a song called Used to Be a Cha-Cha composed
by the legendary Jaco Pastorius. (CD 1 Sound Sample 2)
Exercise #2: Pick A Pair
A.
This exercise focuses on working the fretting fingers in alternating

pairs. When the fingers are paired, you first lead the pattern with one
pair, then alternate by leading with the other pair. NB Pay close
attention to the fingerings below the notes.
The first two (2) pairs are fingers 1 & 3 and 2 & 4. (That is, the index
paired with the ring finger, and the middle paired with the pinkie
finger.) Metronome set at 55bpm to start off.
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B.
Now well reverse the order of the pairings like so

C.
Hows about another permutation of the pairs? Heres the

workout. Fretting fingers paired are 1 & 4 followed by 2
& 3. (CD 1 Sound Sample 5)
D.
And of course to reverse which pair leads we get
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E.
And the final permutation well workout with is 2 & 1
paired against fingers 4 & 3
F.
Now the reverse as per usual
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Exercise #3: Birds on a Wire
Heres an old and very common workout I apply a twist to In order

to isolate, strengthen and make more dexterous each individual finger
on the fretting hand, I purposely separate it from the others by
anchoring it on the first string as the other three fingers execute string
crosses (Youll get the idea once you play it through a couple times slowly.)
Keep an eye out for how each finger gets a turn to be left behind on
the first string after each rotation.
Exercise #4: The Hourglass

Here well experiment with a workout I learnt when I played the guitar,
called the spider. (Seems there are a lot of workouts called the spider) Well the
end is an exercise thats geared at proper string crossing with both left
and right hands. (CD 1 Sound Sample 10)
Luckily its pretty straight forward.
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Exercise #5: JPs Spider
A.
Next heres a through workout made popular to bassists by the mind

blowing John Patitucci. Go figure Its called The Spider as well .
B.
Now to throw a bit of string skipping into the mix Well work the
same pattern using the next string over.
C.
And to expand even more, well skip two strings over, to finish the
exercise. (CD 1 Sound Sample 13)
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Exercise #6: Chicks Lick
I wonder how many of you guys and goyles out there

can email me saying why this exercise is named like it
is? (CD 1 Sound Sample 14)
Again a few friendly reminders Practice each exercise WITH a drum machine or
metronome Dont make it a habit if practicing these exercises without it!
Secondly, when you get an exercise under your fingers, see if you can try them each
without using your picking hand, so you sound the notes with your left hand only,
without having to look at the fretboard.
This is a really solid test of how good your left hand technique is progressing. Also
try as well occasionally to play without the left hand thumb being in back of the
neck. I recommend that you go through these exercises DAILY, making it part of
your woodshed routine spending at lease 2 3 minutes on each.
And in all that, remember to look out for and control any open string resonance,
using the methods I spoke about earlier, stick whole-heartedly to the 1-finger-per-
fret and the walking-picking-fingers methods, and try always to attack the notes so
that they sound evenly in volume.
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Lesson
The Role of the Bass

7
Were about to lay some heavy stuff down here Unfortunately some people are
unavoidably going to make the mistake of skipping ahead Luckily however an
almost even percentage of you will read through it like you should
Of that super sensible group, about 20% will instantly catch and deeply appreciate
this lesson They will see the light so to speak
Another 20% will come back to it at some time later and on that second reading will
kick themselves for not having re-read it before
A further 15% will have something it says automatically click perhaps as many as 20
months from now And will see the light then
45% will suffer from what I call mental cataracts and go, So what? They would
have missed the deal altogether, and should have someone order them a clue
Im not sure which group you belong to.
But you will For your sake I hope its the right group. Nuff Said!
Contrary to popular believe the bassist is NOT the dinky little sidekick, over-
shadowed by the great and almighty lead guitarist. The bass (whether or not your recognize
it) plays one of the single most crucial roles in a band and almost serves the purpose
of being in the drivers seat of the band.
Lets see if we can understand why.
Traditionally, the bass filled primarily and almost solely a reinforcing time-keeping
function.
Because of the solid, full, sturdy and distinguishable notes the bass guitar produces,
its not difficult to understand why its easily an instrument with the ability to hold an
unwavering time-keeping role being able to accent and outline the rhythmic
movement of the song.
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The unmistakable pulse of a tight bass line within the mix of music is powerful
enough and yet uncluttered enough to lend a significant contribution to, (or dare I
say) to pull the song and the audience along with it.
So traditionally the bass was and still is a rhythmic instrument. Meaning, that
one of its key purposes, one of the primary functions of the instrument is to help
establish a dependable groove that has a certain degree of repetition to it that a
listeners ears can easily latch on to and follow along with.
(In my humble opinion the bass has one of the larger degrees of sway among the
energy felt by the average listener and that is why I refer to a solid bassist as the
musical puppet master But of course I am open to arguments that I am a biased
punk)
Now lets expand a little.
Although this is one of the most important functions of the bass player, yet if you
ask 10 different players what a groove is and how does one create a groove, youd
probably get 10 different answers.
If you were to look up the meaning of the word groove in context to music youd
find this:- The Groove marks an understanding of rhythmic patterns that
underlies its role in producing the characteristic rhythmic 'feel' of a piece, a feel
created by a repeating framework within which variation can then take
place." Richard Middleton (1999).
In other words, when youre building a bass line there needs to be a certain feel
created rhythmically that is characteristic of the genre of music you are playing (i.e.
Bass lines built for Latin music will have a distinctly different feel and require a different approach
rhythmically than bass lines built for Funk.)...
And that feel must be expressed clearly and powerfully, then continually enforced
and sustained by a certain repeated and identifiable thread throughout the song
so that the band and the audience has something they can latch on to
Something that both the band and the audience needs as a dependable
foundation on which the other instruments sound can stand!
And to go even further, if we were to take what Mr. Middleton says, the framework
of this groove needs to be unwaveringly established FIRST before it is
embellished or dressed up.
However because the bass, unlike the drums and the other percussive instruments
that are solely rhythmic, (sure we know that you can tune drums to different pitches and so can
infer a certain degree of melody, lets be real here) -- the bass unlike these other rhythmic
instruments has the ability as well to emphatically imply harmonies and melodies!
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And that gives it an almost scary amount of power!
Lets back up a bit and define a few things in their more basic form
When we speak of rhythm, were talking about the tempo, the feel and the
movement of the music.
When we speak of the harmony, we speak of the chordal landscape that the music
follows, so lets just say the chords used in the song
And in terms of melodies lets stick with this base definition The part of the song
that youd naturally sing, whistle or hum.
So getting back to what we were saying before, because the bass has the ability to
imply and outline both chords and state melodies like other chordal instruments, in
addition to being able to easily lock you into a dependable groove like a rhythmic instrument,
youd find that the bass, more so than any other instrument has a dual personality
that kind of fits into two distinct categories. (Again, ALL instruments played well
have rhythmic sway as well, but the keyword there is easily)
Because of this dual personality it can act as a bridge or a link between the rhythm
section for establishing that movement, feel and timing of the music and just as
comfortably snuggle into the harmonic section of the music where the chords are
being played.
Do you see where this is going?
Its literally like being the glue that holds both arms of the band together and as such
the bassist has A LOT of interpretive power. For any given chord progression there
are SO many distinguishable spins you can put on it both rhythmically and
harmonically, that its not funny!
Now its said with a lot of power comes a lot of responsibility.
If a bassist does not know his role, and cant serve his function
If you think that youre a lead guitarist and want to compete with the lead player
youre kicking the band in the nuts
If you have no imagination and cant hear a direction to take the song, and you cant
create a groove thats magnetic the listeners ear, youre kicking the audience in the
nuts
If you joined a band as a bassist only because you couldnt find a band that needed a
lead guitarist and thought, Hey how hard can playing the bass be? youre in for a rude
awakening.
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An understanding of the role of the instrument and how to fill that role is critical.
And if you dont get this its not long before youre dropped or you give up playing.
Now youre probably thinking Good grief what a long ramble
Well its worth it! I know loads of musicians, and more so bassists who have no idea
what they are there for, dont appreciate their role and play garbage because of a
lack of understanding.
Remember the nature of your instrument allows you to act as the go-between, almost
the rudder on a ship.
Often times the most memorable segment of a song is the bass line. Often times the
part of a song that has the audience focused (consciously or unconsciously), tapping their
feet and locked into the rest of the music is the contribution that the bass line pumps
into the rhythm.
And that is so incredibly crucial to get because it allows you to see just how the bass
contributes to the feel and the style of the music so heavily.
Think about it. You have the chords A Minor to F Major that could be played in a
rock feel, it could be played in a jazz feel, and it could be played in a variety of
different genres.
A lot of what determines the difference in genres is the rhythmical properties and the
distinctions of the way that the chords are interpreted (I.E. note choice, note placement
and note duration etc.)
And at the risk of sounding cocky, bassists, being the coolest instrumentalists in the
world, have arguably the biggest amount of collective sway in those areas.
I mean its not hard to tell when youre playing music and lets just say that the
bassist stops playing for fifteen seconds or ten seconds, there is a distinguished
emptiness and void felt in the song.
Again, in all fairness if the drummer or chordist stops playing a discernable void is
felt as well but, if the bassist is a solid and sturdy time-keeper the music can continue
going based on the bassists time-keeping
If the keyboardist was to stop playing but you have a bassist who is very harmonic
and can outline chords and so on, the music can continue going on with the bass and
the drums. There is a good deal of slack that a great bass player can pick up for
both categories of instruments.
So personally, the way that I like to think of the bass guitar is that it is a time-
keeping instrument, a rhythmic instrument with the ability to voice. And right about
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now Im going stop bragging about the bass guitar, although Im sure youre agree
with me
(You see I expect this manual to land in the hands of many non-bassist as well Say for example
a certain flutist I know may, after reading, be persuaded to become an electric bassist and truthfully
thats not the goal of this manual. Wink wink...)
Now having said all of that let us take a look at four things that you really need to
understand as a bassist in order to fill your role properly.
Well refer to them as the four (4) Golden Rules of bass playing, because before you
play a note, these are four crucial things you need to identify and deal with when you
approach a song.
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Lesson
The Four Golden Rules of Bass Playing

8
In the most boiled down, simplified version of electric bass playing, the bassist
would help serve almost solely as an instrumentalist who reinforces the feel of solid
time in an arrangement that can usually be followed with ease by a listener.
Its almost serves as a filter for the general listener Often presenting just the most
core aspects of the harmonic and rhythmic structures in the form of a groove that is
easy to catch on to.
To do this he would be probably be concerned with locking into the time meter of
the song and creating an energetic pulse using a few very dependable notes in any
chord. (Hint the Root and the 5th and Octave)
So if the keyboardists or guitarist plays an A Major7, man that bass could pulse on
either of two A notes (the Root note and Octave of A MAJ7) and an E note (the
5thA MAJ7), lock in an interesting time pattern and rock all day long.
However you would notice that in present day time the rules of electric bass have
evolved a bit
And just as the Charles Mingus, Ron Carters, Scott LeFaros, Stanley Clarkes and
others pushed the borders of what came to be expected on the acoustic
instrument
The James Jamersons, Jaco Pastorius, Francis Rocco Prestias, John Patituccis, Victor
Wootens, and SO many others have done things with electric basses that have
totally shocked and wowed their audiences, and pushed and stretched the envelope
of what were expected contributions from electric bass players.
And today people are continuing to use the bass, both electric and acoustic upright,
not just as a background-reinforcing rhythmic instrument but as the lead instrument
on solo albums that today are now openly accepted even by the layman listener
The danger however is that in the race to innovate on the instrument we might find
that it is taken to the point where the playing now leans more to the side of
performance circus tricks than focused thought out bass lines.
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Now Im not against dazzling chops, and Ripleys-Believe-it-or-Not onstage feats,

but my concern is that younger players dont get distracted as to what they are meant
to be doing in a band setting.
My concern is that we dont perform so much that we forget to play. And while that
statement would probably not make me popular if you goal is to be an appreciated,
functioning, solid, called-upon, effective bassist, it was a statement you needed to
hear!
With that said, lets take a look at four crucial things you must understand about your
role that will perhaps act as a check-and-balance as we in our own worlds aim to
amaze.
Bear in mind that these are the four deadly sins I warned you about violating on the
website You know, the things thatd make you an outcast, leper of a bass player
whos always picked last for the team, so pay attention!
Golden Rule #1
Youre Always Going To Be A Time-Keeper
And If You Cant Lock Solid Time, Youre Screwed.
Quite simply, at the most foundational level as a bassist, if you cant;
1) Keep and represent a precise and dependable sense of time

throughout the music youre playing
2) Play in context with the drummer to compliment rather than choke

the groove hes got going
You are guaranteed to completely mess everything up and get thrown off the tour
bus at the next gas stop.
Now dont take that to mean that you cant play fast You can play fast alright, just
ask John Patitucci, Bill The Buddha Dickens and Alain Caron. But before you can
play fast you gotta be able to play in time, and represent a continuous time even if
you play off the beat.
Thats why youre going to be practicing everything you do with a metronome or a

drum machine. It is exceedingly important that you have solid time.
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And when we talk about time-keeping again its including the way the bass operates
in context to the drumming How he compliments him, how he plays alongside
him whether or not you play with or against the kick drum.
Were talking about building a line that fits what the drummer is doing like a glove
without squeezing the life out of his groove. (Just keep this in mind. Well focus on exactly
how we do this in Volume 2 but for now back to the other three golden rules).
Golden Rule #2
Youre Going To Have To Understand Chord Structure
And Your Options For Playing Over Them
The chord structure of each individual chord in a song is something a bassist must
understand because it lets you know how to fulfill your second role.
In other words, the entire purpose of this course is to move away from just playing
A, A, E, E over an A Maj7 chord and to get some more fluidity and some more
creative flavor as a bassist.
So you gotta get chord structure, how to highlight chords, the different scales
that you can use based on the chords that are being played, how to effectively use
passing and approach notes that make other notes that are usually not considered, fit
into place.
When you approach a song, for the first time, you instantly want to identify at least
both the Time and start looking at the Harmonic structure being formed by the
individual chords, because the chords that are played go a long way into determining
the range of note choices you have and the different ways you can use riffs to join
these chords
Golden Rule #3
Youre Going To Need An Ear And A Vision For
How The Progression/Song As A Whole Unfolds
Now to extend on the previous point you need to be able to look at the chord
progression and band sound as a whole.
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You gotta ask yourself, How is this progression evolving?
Start looking at what chords come next to each other Looking for sub-divisions of
chord groupings like ii-V-I s etc.
Just like some people can speed read a book and see an entire line of text as one
unit, many advanced musicians look at chord charts different to others and see
chord groupings rather than individual chords.
Not only does this allow for them to think up ideas faster because the have to
process less individual chords so to speak, but it also allows them to have a wider
range for expressing better flowing ideas because the harmony is a little less
chopped up now.
Questions like, Are there phrases in the song that I need to accent Can I
combine riffs in a way that they dont sound disjointed but rather flow smoothly into
each other? Whats my musical space?
How and where should I insert breathing space into the song
How full or how busy a bass line, should I be playing? How laid back a bass line
should I be playing? are things you need to ask of every song and when we start the
groove section well see how to answer these questions to your benefit.
Golden Rule #4
To Understand The Genre Of Music And How To
Interpret The Authentic Feel Of That Style
What exactly does that mean?
Well quite simply, playing a chord progression in an authentic Latin feel as

compared to a rock feel are two completely different things altogether and the
bassist absolutely has to understand how note placement and note choice are
affected by the genre of music he is playing.
The second volume of Bass Guitar Secrets! is going to be covering a lot of these
things in great practical and follow-able detail because were going to be talking
about analyzing and approaching a song to build irresistible grooves but as a bassist
bear in mind that if its four things you need to get locked on to, to be really, really
be a tasty instrumentalist its these.
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Again to summarize our four golden rules are;-
Time-keeping and playing in proper context to the drummer and more so the
entire groove of the band
Understanding individual chord structures, how chords are formed and your
options for note choice (Hey you gotta know the rules to break em
sensibly )
Having an ear for the overall harmony and direction of the song and
interpretive ideas for the general mode and direction of the song
Knowing as much as you can about the genre that youre supposed to be
interpreting and how to interpret that feel bases on the authentic
characteristics of that style.
These four (4) focus areas are surely a pretty well rounded foundation to use when
approaching a song.
Beware - Creative Trap Ahead!
Certainly to boil it down to the absolute lowest common denominator, the only two
things you absolutely need focus on as a bassist are your sense of time and a basic
scale/chord understanding And therein lays a trap that snare many would be bassist.
For all intents and purposes the bass is a relatively simple instrument to start
playing.
You may not sound too incredible, but fact is many people can pick up a bare
bones understanding and play a tabbed out song within a few hours even. (In fact at
the end of this volume, well give you a cut and dry lazy mans guide to get you started playing your
own bass liens in 14 short days, but a caveat is in order!)
*IMPORTANT CAVEAT*
WARNING!! The 14 day guide is being presented for 2 reasons
1) A good number of folks out there wrote in specifically

requesting a bare-bones roadmap they can use just to get
started playing something and
2) For positive re-enforcement for the shy beginner! (Ill explain).
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It is scientifically proven that even the slightest success you have at anything you
try for the first time helps solidify in your brain that you can in fact do this
This way with the 14 day plan, even a total spanking new novice can achieve some,
albeit minor, level of success that can help dispel any doubt they may have for getting
started.
Its kinda like celebrating the very first dollar made in a business venture Its not
the ultimate goal, its not even a result to shout about, but it does represent validate
that you did something!
The point is no matter how small the knowledge base, how simple the progression
you play, if youre new to the bass guitar and youre tentative about the decision, that
first time you jam with a band or with the BGM JamBox software is going to do
something to you that no one can teach! And thats a fact.
Thats the only two reasons for the 14 day game plan presented at the end of this
volume To clear a no-frills-attached, no bells-nwhistles path for a beginner to
follow and play something Anything And to get their juices flowing!
This is in NO way meant to imply that you can master the instrument in 14
days! Thatd be plain ridiculous. You are certainly NOT to take that guide as
the ultimate plan of attack
But like I said before thats boiling it down to the absolute lowest common
denominator Learn some note names, practice mimicking the kick drum and next
thing you know youre calling home, Woo-Hoo look ma-ma, look at me, look at me!
Positive reinforcement.
But heres the snare I just warned you about
On the flip side, so many people may choose to be self taught (because of the apparent
simplicity of the instrument... Just one simple note to play at a time right?... This is going to be a
breeze! Yeah right!) and develop so many bad habits that are gut wrenchingly painful
to break.
Then, when it comes to taking your playing to the next level now, you discover that
there are untold numbers of nuances you simply cant execute that when put
together are what makes your bass lines special
Developing proper technique for example is not an over night process. And
unfortunately with the overwhelming amount of carbon-copy music coming out of
garage bands these days its kinda easy to become content if what you play never
disturbs you enough to learn and do more.
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Well congratulations are in order, because youre NOT one of those people. You actively
sought out the help of others, and youre one of the many folks who have chosen to
invest in yourself and get a copy of this home study course.
Youve demonstrated that youre either not content with your current level of playing
and that you want to step up your playing or that you dont intend to become
content! With that, its still always a good idea to have some type of continuous
tutorship, coaching and guidance going on to help you stop areas to improve that
you simply cant see because you havent yet climbed that mountain.
The electric bass is a very wide sweeping, high potential and full bodied instrument
and it requires just as much discipline and dedication as any other, and in addition to
getting this course, we sure hope you intend to spend the necessary time and effort
honing your craft.
Ill stop ranting now (Smile)
Later on to add to the mix of these 4 golden rules and to really take your playing to a
next level, well introduce something that is without a doubt perhaps the single
most crucial gold nugget of them all
I call it the X-Factor and youll be introduced to it a bit later (in Volume 2) and itll be
continually re-enforced throughout the rest of the course.
This is literally the magic ingredient that you add to the potion and without it you
can get good (no doubt) But theres always going to be a ceiling capping you from
getting truly great.
Okay were about ready to get into some basic theory now and were going to try to
dissolve this all to the lowest common denominator to make it simple Some of the
explanations will be unorthodox but its done that way as I truly feel it helps even
beginners grasp the concepts and process the information that builds on those
concepts comfortably.
Ill try to demystify it all as much as we can because the course is supposed to be a
practical one. Its supposed to be one that you can pick up and use without having a
degree in music. So well just go over some basics.
One of the absolute first things I really want you to keep in mind is that the musical
alphabet has only 12 possible notes...
From Beethoven to Chopin Steve Vai to Chick Corea John Patitucci to John
Coltrane
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Anytime you start thinking, Good grief that guys freakin OUTURAGEOUS
Just remember, for all intents and purposes he has available to him the SAME
12 notes you do.
Its ALL about imagination, proper technique, listening, PATIENCE, being

able to replicate what you hear thereby letting your imagination remove your
mechanical limits, and PRACTICING like a monster!
Ok so lets get this show on the road!
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Lesson
The Musical Alphabet

9
In music, the sound of a tone produced by an instrument (or a voice) can usually be
labeled with a LETTER and as such, music as a language has developed its own
ALPHABET.
Unlike with the English alphabet however, the musical alphabet has only 7 letters (A,
B, C, D, E, F, G) In addition to these 7 lettered notes, its possible to identify 5
additional tones by either sharpening (raising) or flattening (dropping) some of
those seven notes.
These additional notes are called accidentals and wed use the # sign to indicate
a sharpened note and the sign to indicate a lowered note. For easy
understanding and for our purposes right now, just think of an accidental as a
lettered note you either sharpen (#) or flatten ( ) by a half step.
That gives us a total of 12 possible notes for us to use in creating our ideas: (The 7
lettered notes (A through G) and 5 additional accidental notes). (Now think of it like
this If youre reading this manual, then chances are you didnt do too badly with the English
language -- And that has a bulging 26 letters! )
Each and every note has a fixed distance between them. In music this distance
between notes is called the INTERVAL.
The smallest interval that we recognize between any two notes is called a semi
tone (A.k.a. half step or half tone.)
Youd find it helpful to start thinking of the notes in music the same way youd think
of a numerical sequence that increments in fractions of -- i.e. 1, 1, 2, 2 etc.
Now think of each whole number as a letter in the musical alphabet and think of
each sharp (#) or flat ( ) as a fraction of step. Hopefully were clear so far.
Lets use an example to make it even clearer. (Well use the letter C as the starting
point since in the musical alphabet C holds the same kind of prominence that the
letter A holds in the English alphabet Most times when demonstrating scales,
modes, etc. we use the C note as a starting point and youll see why a bit later if you
dont already know.)
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Ok so going through all the notes of the musical alphabet starting with C and
moving up in semi-tones or steps we get;
C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C
Another way of writing this would be in terms of flats, since raising

C by -step gives the same effect as dropping or flattening D by
-step. (CD 1 Sound Sample 15)
C, D , D, E , E, F, G , G, A , A, B , B, C
If you want to get all fancy-smancy about it, this is what wed term an enharmonic
spelling In regular people speak that means that each note has at least two (2)
different names by which it can be called A C# is also a D .
Looking this over what do you notice?
1) The #s (sharps) and s (flats) are treated like fractions of as we

mentioned before.
2) There are no accidentals (i.e. sharps or flats) between the notes E and F,
and the notes B and C.
The simple explanation for this is that the interval or the distance between E
and F, and the interval or distance between B and C by nature is already
step.
Dont ask why, lets just accept it. Thats just the way it was chosen to be
labeled when that guy was inventing music. {smile}
In a general and practical sense an E# does not really exist. (In terms of
normal accepted speak), although you can legitimately argue (and youd be
darn right) that, E# is really just F. I mean, some say pot-A-toe others
say pot-AH-toe but its all just a name for identifying a potato.
So in regular music speak and for convenience well just stay away from the
E# or B# or F or C for now
Lets go to our fret board and see how this starts to pan out on our instrument On
your 4 string bass heres what that would look like.
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The nice thing is that with stringed instruments like the electric bass and the guitar,
the frets are spaced to represent step intervals So if you start from C on the
bass (3rd fret and 3rd string) every time you move across a fret youre following the
exact pattern we just laid out in figure 1.
And just as a side-note, when you do this, (move up or down in half steps and play from all
the available notes in the musical alphabet) youre playing chromatically.
Ok so heres a quick exercise for the beginners Go ahead and fill out the
remaining notes on the 6-string fretboard diagram below (up to the 12th fret)
Remember, just look at what note the string would sound if played OPEN and
follow through the musical alphabet as you know it.
Looking at the diagram, hopefully you understand by now that moving from F to G
is a whole tone interval (because its 2, -steps) but moving from E to F or B to
C is only half tone.
Your bass should also have position marker dots on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 17th,
19th, and 24th frets. These dots are going to come in handy and will prove quite useful
in helping you find your way about the instrument.
While you will NOT have to memorize all the notes on the fretboard, there are some
very crucial notes you will need to know like the back of your hand. In our diagrams
they are BOLDED.
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If youre wondering why we only have some of the notes committed to memory, its
because;
1) When youre playing you do NOT need to actively know the names of each and
every note youre playing.
Often times its enough to know where you are in relation to the root note of the
chord you are playing through, (youll see what we mean a bit later on) and ultimately your
goal is to be able to play by ear and replicate the tones you are hearing in your
head any way, so learning all the notes by rote is NOT a requirement.
2) Simply by knowing the musical alphabet thoroughly, you can quickly, (almost by
second nature) remember the notes that are in-between the must-know notes. In
other words by memorizing the notes on the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th frets, its almost
impossible not to automatically identify the notes on the 2nd, 4th and 6th frets.
3) Youd also notice that were only actively memorizing notes on the topmost or
lower sounding strings, i.e. the B, E and A strings and only in the first 7 frets.
(Mainly falling in what is called the lower register of your instrument.)
Were going to learn some quick tips for identifying other notes in all areas of the
mid and higher register in a split second, based on the ones youve already
memorized.
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Lesson
10
4 Vital Note Equations
Seeing as how we just mentioned it, lets jump into some quick tips you will be using
to figure out any of the notes on the bass just by knowing the musical alphabet and
the key notes we highlighted before.
Well call this section note equations or more simply put, ways to identify where
note X is equal to note Y.
And knowing these if I were to ask you to point out three different B s on the
instrument its going to be very simple for you to locate them using these equations.
NB. Dont let the term figuring out scare you Before long youll literally be able
to do this at the drop of a dime, use the key notes weve already memorized to name
any other note you can play.
What is most important however is that you learn the musical alphabet like your own
name. You should know exactly what comes before and after ANY note without
having to think about it!
The first equation well identify is one I refer to as the 2x2 slide.
The 2 x 2 Slide
If you start at any note and you move two frets across to your right and two
strings down youre going to find the same note one octave higher.
So in other words, if youre at F (1st fret on the E-string) and you move two frets
across to your right, and two string down to the D string, youll find another, higher
pitched, F note.
Of course the reverse is also true Moving 2 strings up and 2 frets to the left lands
you on the same note but one octave lower
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The 3x3 slide

If you move three strings UP from any note and three frets across to your RIGHT
youre going to find the same note one octave LOWER.
For example, if youre at G# (1st fret on the G-string) moving three string up to the
E string, and three frets across to the right, will land you on another G# note but
one octave lower.
Of course the reverse is also true Move 3 frets to the left and 3 strings DOWN
lands you on the same note but an octave HIGHER
End of the Board

Another thing youd find useful to know is that at the 12th fret (where your
fingerboard would usually have the first double dot marker or some type of special
marking) thats where the fret board on your instrument basically starts over.
So you can easily think of playing any note on the 12th fret as exactly the same as
playing that string OPEN.
You can get all the way up the neck and then just ignore everything before the
double dots, imagine that youre playing in the familiar territory of the first 7 frets for
example and youll be just fine!
So to re-emphasize therefore the 17th fret is the same as playing the 5th fret.
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Lucky 7s
And the final equation well talk about is the fact that again the entire sequence of
notes on the fretboard is repeated just as is in the open position, starting at the 7th
fret one string down.
A diagram will better illustrate
So you can treat your 3rd string as you would the 4th if you do so starting at the 7th
fret, and think of your 4th string now as having the tuning of a low B string on a 5
string instrument.
Now you may not yet realize it, but you already have all the artillery you need at your
disposal to precisely locate and name any note on the fretboard.
What you need to practice and you can make a game of it.
Pick a note anywhere on the fret board, as high or as out of the way as you can, and
see which of the 3 equations above you can use alone or in combination to another
to bring you as close as possible to a note you already know! And from there its all
cake!
Give yourself some time to practice and youll be amazed at the results! Trust me, itll
just start to jump out to you that, for example, this note is equal to this other note
which is next to this note that I know is C#, so therefore it must be D.
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Lesson
11
Major Scales
Now think about it Youre learning a language.
And just like when you were learning the English language you got the alphabet
down pat, then started learning some fundamental groupings of letters called words,
youre gonna start sticking some musical notes together in a certain way to start
making what we call scales.
A scale is quite simply a grouping of notes put together in a sequential format that
produces a peculiar sound of its own. Just like there are lots of words, there are lots
of scales. And just like you can use certain words to form other longer words and
sentences, you can use whole scales, pieces of scales and altered scales to form
musical ideas.
In Western Music, one of the most fundamental scales you will learn is the MAJOR
scale. And needless to say (but Ill say it anyway) because there are 12 different
musical notes, there are also 12 different MAJOR scales One named after each
musical note.
Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
I can show you the theory behind using the Circle of Fifths to magically
materialize all 12 major scales. You can memorize all the notes contained in each
and every scale and youd be a monster. All props to you
Or, we can do this the easy way. We can quite simply learn the formulas that are
used to stack notes together to create these Major scales and take it from there on
the fly!
And again, the nice thing about being a bassist, is that because of the layout of the
instrument and because all our notes by and large look the same, (hint, there are no
pesky black notes in between white one ) we can simply learn these formulas, convert
them to mental maps of what a certain scale should look like on the fingerboard and
not even worry about exactly what notes (by name) you are playing.
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Ok so the formula you need to learn for playing ANY MAJOR scale no matter what
note you start on is this
X, W, W, S, W, W, W, S
Where X = the note you start one, W = a whole note interval or a movement of 2
-steps and S = a semi tone movement or a step interval.
Ok well do just a couple for you as an example and then give you the chance to
complete the other 10 MAJOR scales Entirely to see that you understand, of
course not out of my laziness in any way.
It would be good to use your ax to see how this pans out and to start giving yourself
a good feel for finding the names of notes using the 4 equations we gave you earlier,
and also to start seeing how the formula builds up from nothing into musical
building blocks.
Starting at C and moving one Whole Step interval, (or two steps) takes us to D.
From D moving another Whole Step interval as the formula indicates takes us
through D# up into E. (Again 2, steps).
From the E note moving one Semi Tone or step takes us to F. (Remember the
interval between E and F is already naturally a semi tone.)
(The rest of the formula is illustrated in the diagram below)
The included sound sample plays the C Major Scale ascending and
descending forms. (CD 1 Sound Sample 16)
Heres another example to make sure you get it
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And now, its your turn. Go ahead and fill in the blank spaces using the
formula printed below to complete the other 10 Major scales. Then
practice playing through the notes of each scale on your bass.
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OK, lets learn a couple patterns we can use as mental maps that when followed will
always sound out a MAJOR scale on a properly tuned instrument. Well also include
the right fingering you should start practicing to use.
Important. The numbers in the circles you see in the diagram below denote
which fretting finger you should use to play the note where 1 index finger, 2
middle finger, 3 ring finger and 4 pinkie.
I cant underscore how important it is to start practicing fingerings that allow you to
smoothly move in and out of different forms.
Ill give you an example but first take a look at major scale patterns and commit them
to memory with the proper fingerings. N.B. The notes colored in black are the
ROOT (the note that the scale is named after) and its octave.
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Here Are a Few Hot Tips To Notice
Tip 1: Now more than ever youd start to appreciate the 1 finger per fret method.
Tip 2: If you use the fingerings I give you, FORM 1 ends just where you need to
start off using FORM 2.
(That is, the last note played when using FORM 1, would be fretted by the pinkie
finger and the first note of the scale played using FORM 2 is fretted by the pinkie
finger!
This is VERY handy, because it continues to work vice versa When you get
to the end of FORM 2 now, you are perfectly set up to start using FORM 1.)
Side note: If you played a bass with 6 or more strings, youd see just how well the
two forms fit together vertically to allow you to run more than one OCTAVE of
the scale in one hand position.
Tip 3: Playing the MAJOR scale sounds the famous, Doh, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Tee,
Doh phrase.
Now, lets stack a couple Forms together and see what obtains
If we were to use FORM 3, and continue by playing a FORM 1

MAJOR scale exactly where FORM 3 ends heres what wed get;
(If we continue to play a FORM 1 right as the FORM 3 ends wed get to play the first 5 notes of
the Major scale in the next higher octave.)
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(On a 5 string instrument wed get to play through two entire major scales using
FORM 3 and FORM 1, back to back.)
(And finally on a 6 string bass, (what I play) youd get to complete 2 Major
scales by stacking a FORM 3, FORM 1 and part of a FORM 2 together.)
The reason this type of stacking of FORMS is important is because it allows you to
get the most number of notes in any ONE hand position without having to move
out of a comfort zone so to speak.
I suggest you memorize the above diagrams, so you can stretch your Major
scale as far as possible without moving hand positions.
And dont worry about this being, counter-productive to our ultimate goal of being
able to play every where Being able to use the entire length of the neck is just a
matter of learning to squeeze the forms together horizontally (across the full length
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of the neck) just like you did vertically! And rest assured well be getting to that in
due time!
But by understanding how one FORM of the major scale can flow into another you
are allowed to maximize on the playable notes in a position and that is never a bad
thing Especially when youre building a solid groove.
For now, we want you to really get comfortable playing these forms CLEANLY
both forward and backwards. Work with a metronome and be sure to keep an eye
on all the technique tips we talked about earlier.
Keep your eye out for the 4 equations I shared for linking same notes to help find
your way around. (Remember the 2x2 slide etc.)
Look to see how they relate to where you are and start visualizing the patterns youre
playing. Its important to always know where you are in the pattern in relation to
the ROOT note and you will be able to move in and out without problems.
And above all listen to what youre playing and learn to spot when you complete
one Major Scale Form and start into another Listen to and get used to the sound
of the Major scale as a whole and see how best you can think of it as a building
block in and of itself, rather than 8 individual notes.
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Lesson
12
Scale Degrees + Intervals
Earlier we mentioned that you dont need to know every single note that you are
playing by name. In fact, it is quite sufficient to know how you are moving around
the scale in relation to where the ROOT note (or one of its equivalent octaves) is.
Well heres a system that musicians use to accomplish just that. Instead of messing
around and thinking of note names, we think of the scales individual notes as
numbers called DEGREES so
The first note of any pattern you use to play the C Major Scale (which would be C of
course) is the 1st degree of that scale. The 2nd note, (In this case, D) would be the 2nd
degree etc
At this point we dont specifically name the accidentals just yet, but youll see how
we deal with them in a bit.
The scale now has 7 unique notes. The 8th degree is simply the ROOT note in a
higher octave. You can see this by playing the C Major scale using any of the
FORMS we gave you, and youd notice that the last note you play sounds exactly the
same as the first note, just higher.
Now there are two ways to deal with degrees that come after the 7th degree. For
simplicity in certain purposes we ignore everything numbered 8 and above and just
start counting again at the 1st degree once we get past the 7th And in some cases
youd hear of degrees like the 13th degree.
What this is simply saying is that youre currently playing the note that is one octave
higher than the 6th degree.
Hot Tip: A quick and easy tip is to simply minus 7 from any degree above the 7th to
find its equivalent in the scale. E.g. the 9th degree is really the same lettered note as
the 2nd but one octave higher The 13th degree is really the same as the 6th but one
octave higher.
This entire system of seeing the scale in terms of degrees is so very crucial to fret
board navigation, because soon enough you want to start visualizing how certain
degrees relate to the ROOT note in terms of relative positioning from it.
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Speaking of which, that leads us now to a slightly evolved definition of Intervals.
This is a term youve been hearing all throughout this course so far to describe the
distance between any two notes. Well in this lesson when we talk about Intervals
we are specifically referring to the distance one degree lies from the ROOT note.
NB. You might want to know that youd come across two types of intervals
Harmonic intervals, and Melodic intervals. Dont let it freak you out.
A harmonic interval is simply when you play the two notes of an interval at the same
time, (like you would when you sound a chord) and a melodic interval would be when you
play the notes successively or one after the other (like you would when you play a scale).
These intervals can be represented VISUALLY (meaning I can point them out to you in
diagrams and you can literally see them on the fretboard) and they can be represented
SONICALLY (meaning that you will eventually learn to hear these distances).
Youll want to be able to do BOTH and dont sweat it for now if youre a little
freaked by the thought.
Check Point: As were going about the lessons, its vital to ensure that you fully
understand all that were talking about. The lessons are designed to build one on top
of the other and progress with the assumption that you have some things under your
belt.
If you dont feel a certain degree of comfort with what was said, its probably in your
best interest to go through the lesson again.
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Lesson
13
How Intervals Are Represented
Visually
As a quick example: Visually speaking, (in terms of what it looks like on the
fretboard) the 8th degree is a 2x2 slide away from the ROOT and the 5th degree is a
2x1 slide. (2 frets to the right and 1 string down).
Here are diagrams showing at least two (2) options for each of the seven (7) intervals
and where they lie in relation to the ROOT.
You should commit them to memory now before you move on, so that at any
given time you are able to point out at least two (2) choices for any interval required
of you.
PS. You also want to take notice of how the intervals are named
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This audio sample demonstrates what it would sound like if I played all
the melodic intervals the major scale (starting as unison and working
up through to the octave) ascending and descending in succession.
If youre sharp, youd have noticed that the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th intervals are called,
Major type intervals and the 4th, 5th and 8th are called Perfect intervals. The
interval between the ROOT and itself is called UNISON.
Were taking everything in stages and building one block on top of another, so hang
in there and do everything systematically.
Later on when we start running practical stuff like crazy, youre gonna want to have
this under your belt.
For example, its crucial that you start thinking in terms of degrees for what were
about to do next, and start developing a presence of mind for exactly what degree
you are at in the scale.
So please, please, please, take the time to memorize the visual representation of each
interval. If I were to point out a note on your fretboard and ask you to show me the
7th degree without running through the scale you should be able to point out at least
two options for me without hesitation.
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Work like the good diligent student you are to commit the interval
sounds and patterns to memory. A good way to work on this is to play
the ROOT note, (any root note) then attempt to sing or hum an
interval before playing it.
This will help program your ear to hear the differences in the intervals. And one
more tip
Hot Tip: Heres a powerful method to add to your bag of tricks Practice singing
the Major Scale but replace the syllables Doh-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Doh with numbers
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 instead. Now every time you work on memorizing and recognizing
your intervals, simply play a root note at random, and quickly sing through the Maj
Scale in numbers till you get to the interval you want.
Itll take a while to get used to but youll love me for it! ;-)
Your ability to play further up the neck rather than just in one comfort zone is
dependent on it.
When you feel comfortable that you can do this then move on to the next lesson,
because Im about to show you the base foundation of becoming a fretboard genius
and comfortably playing all over the width of the fretboard!
Lets see
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Lesson
14
Fundamentals of Fretboard Mastery
Ok one of the main desires of many would be bass players (and guitarists for that
matter) is to be able to play comfortably across the entire area of the fretboard.
From experience Ive found that the vertically patterns are a bit easier to learn and
memorize that the horizontal ones. In other words people dont have as much of a
problem playing in one hand position vertically as playing the same thing spread
across the length of the fretboard horizontally.
And coming to think of it this kinda goes without saying. Cause its just plain old
easier to see a patterns when the notes are closer clustered together than spread all
the way across the fretboard.
But were gonna see how we can knock out of that somewhat caged, tunnel vision
and start seeing how we can join the forms we learnt, horizontally to cover some
more distance across the length of the neck. Basically the goal of this lesson is to get
you to a point where you are able to string a series of Major scales together
seamlessly.
In fact one exercise we are going to have you focus on next is being able to play
straight through as many octaves of a scale you can get as possible all the way up and
down the neck. So on your 4 string bass, youre gonna learn how to play from the
low E, (4th string open) straight up to the highest note in the E Major Scale that your
bass would allow and back down.
A lot of people literally bang their heads against the wall and cry bloody murder
trying to learn how to do this And often times give up on it because the truth is
they are just trying to hard.
But I believe that by adopting the method Im about to explain to you, it sure as heck
is gonna get so much easier you wont believe once you get this method into your
system, so to speak.
Lets go back a bit to when we first stacked two (2) major scale forms together to
maximize on the notes we could play in one hand position.
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When we look at the 5 string bass diagram we did earlier showing how to run two
Major scales together we understood that its really two different FORMS of the
Major scale that we successfully linked together by one common note and by now it
should be easy to play that entire map without thinking about it simply because
you;
1) Remember the two smaller bits and,
2) Understand how to join them.
What if now, we use the same process but broke up the Major scale itself into
smaller pieces that are even easier to remember, and allow us to do even more re-
shuffling and piecing together!?
While you think about that let me ask you another question Which do you think is
easier to maneuver? A steel rod thats 20 feet long or one thats just 20 inches long?
The obvious answer is the piece thats 20 inches long, right?! And thats the
foundation that my fretboard mastery lesson is built on Piecing together very
small chunks that are easy to maneuver and remember.
Its not some fascinating mystical secret but rather a very simple mindset you need to
approach this exercise with and its the base building block of the entire fretboard
mastery concept.
As I go through this explanation I want you to think of the Major scale over the
entire neck as a puzzle One that can be pieced together by finding smaller chunks
of the Major scale and understanding how to link them together successfully.
Heres the process
Step 1: Break up FORM 1 of the Major Scale, into 3-note chunks so that 3
notes are played per string.
For our purposes in this lesson well call these 3 note chunks, Mini-scales or Scale
fragments. And of course, just as before, the right fingerings are vital and are shown
in the diagrams.
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Step 2: Memorize at least two interval positions for each degree. (You should
already have done this in the previous lesson, but if you skipped the homework,
please go back and do the necessary work now!)
Step 3: Memorize the following tables. It shows which Mini-Scale Fragments to

use, starting on which degrees of the scale, when you are ASCENDING or
DESCENDING the neck.
When Ascending
At Degrees Plug In Scale

Fragment
1 and 4 and 5 (and their equivalents) #1
3 and 7 (and their equivalents) #2
When Descending
At Degrees Plug In Scale

Fragment
7 and 6 and 3 (and their equivalents) #1
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(N.B. When descending the Scale Fragments keep their shape, but are played in reverse order.
Duh!)
Step 4: As youre just getting started it would helpful to count aloud, the degrees of
the scale AS YOU PLAY THEM (Youll be counting a cycle from 1 7 then
starting over at 1 again.)
The reason you are counting is because its very important that you know what the
NEXT degree to be played is. Coincidentally thats also the reason that you need to
know where as many options for each interval are as possible.
Step 5: Play straight through the 3 notes of the Mini-Scale fragment as indicated in
the table above, identify what degree is next to be played and choose accordingly the
correct Mini-Scale Fragment for that next degree you are about to play. (This will all
make sense shortly )
Step 6: To take it further eventually youll memorize the collective sounds of these
Mini-Scales and the sounds of your intervals, and youll be able to do all this by ear
rather than having to count your degrees. (In other words learn to hear what Scale
fragment #1 sounds like as a unit and learn to hear what the 7th degree etc sounds
like and youll be able to apply this without even thinking about it.)
Hot Tip: Youll also make fantastic progress with this, if you can visually identify
various options for different scale degrees.
Ok this might seem like a lot, but relax It ISNT!! Its just laid out in detailed steps
and its something of a new idea for most people A new angle of looking at an old
problem.
Within a few weeks of practice with my Fretboard Genius Method youll be flying
through these steps without thinking about it at warp speed!
Ok heres a diagram example explaining all that mumbo jumbo I just said
Demonstration Showing Use of

Mini-scale Fragments When Ascending
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Im not sure if you see the power of this because of just how simply Ive
explained it! (And a bit later on after the lesson on modes youll see an exciting way to expand
on this boiled down mini-scale routine.)
If this is not how you presently think of the neck of the bass guitar youre probably
working too hard! And at first it may be a little bit of a drag to start learning to see
the degrees of a scale this way no matter where you are, but trust me Once you get
this into your system, youre flying high!
This Fretboard Genius Method allows you to start chunking your way into total
fretboard freedom.
A Helpful Side Note:
Another little tip that youll find extremely handy Youd notice that when you play
3-notes per string, that the Mini-scale form that starts at the 1st degree is repeated on
the string directly below it, starting at the 4th degree
The Mini-scale form that starts at the 7th degree is repeated on the string directly
below it, starting at the 3rd degree
And lastly the Mini-scale form that starts at the 6th degree is repeated on the string
directly below it, starting at what is the equivalent to the 2nd degree
Now you can already see the power of being able to spot exactly where your degrees
are in relation to the ROOT But imagine this.
Imagine having your ear trained to the point where you can spot the degrees the
instant they are played so that even if you dont see where the degrees are, your
minds ear spots them automatically micro-seconds after you play it!
Is this possible? Of course! Does that mean having perfect pitch to do it?
Absolutely
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.NOT!!
And heres the truth about stressing out over getting perfect pitch that no one has
the guts to tell you
You do NOT need it!
Sure, if you have perfect pitch thats fantastic. In fact I have friend who plays the
flute. The dude can listen to played music and give you back your own chord chart
by the end of the first rotation and Ill be damned if that aint cool as heck.
But theres something that the average musician can develop a lot easier and with a
lot less head bashing, almost simulate having perfect pitch and play with all the
fluidity of someone who does have it
And its called RELATIVE pitch.
With RELATIVE pitch the key is in understanding the space between sounded
notes, and having a mental sonic idea of what one thing sounds like so you can use
it as a guide to figuring out other sounds. Lets see if we can make that clearer with
an example.
If you have a piece of wood and you were asked to give its estimated length in
inches, when do you think it would be easier to give a more accurate answer 1) If
you had to guess the length just outta the blue, or 2) if you had another piece of
wood in your hand that you know for a fact measured exactly 12 inches?
Id like to think the answer is obvious If you had something to relate in term of
inches to the first piece of wood, then its easy to see how much more likely you are
to properly gauge a good guess.
And thats the whole idea behind, relative pitch versus perfect pitch. With relative
pitch youre learning to use something you know is a fixed given and become such a
good estimator that you can listen and on-the-fly identify notes in relation to the
given.
Remember how before we spoke about learning your intervals and that being so very
important both visually and sonically? Well again youll see that having your ear
trained so that you can recognize the space between two notes is a skill that will
instantly put you SO FAR ahead of the average pack it aint funny.
To re-emphasize
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You can tune your bass using a tuner if you have nothing to use as a point of
reference However if you have just ONE string in TUNE already, we showed you
how you can use that as a reference note to tune the others just as effectively!
And again its the same with relative pitch as compared to perfect pitch. Sure you
might not be able to give the name of notes of the bat just by hearing them. But if
you have your bass in hand for example and you know the KEY a song is being
played in and your ear is trained to spot a, 7th interval or a 5th interval, a flatted 5th
interval etc youd find that with practice you can hear your way through any
song, lick, riff, run (you name it) just as effectively as someone with Perfect Pitch.
If you dont get this yet, take the time to re-read the above paragraphs! Relative pitch
is the key that unlocks the door so many great and wonderful things that we all
dream of being able to do as musicians!
So with Bass Guitar Secrets! I place a lot of emphasis on learning to listen in a

different way To listen for SPACES and intervals in music and NOT just
individual notes, because if you can recognize the SPACE and you know the ROOT
note then youve got it made in the shade just like the lucky punk with perfect pitch!
I said all that to say this
The Time You Invest In Learning To Recognize

All Your Intervals Is Going To Totally
Revolutionize Your World As A Musician
I recommend committing to yourself to spend at least 5 7 minutes everyday just

listening to and playing the sonic shapes of all the major intervals. And whats more,
practice singing, humming or whistling the interval BEFORE you play the note.
(Remember that example I gave before with scales by numbers.)
I want to close up this lesson now with a simple but somewhat challenging exercise
to help you internalize the fretboard mastery fundamentals we shared earlier.
The exercise is straightforward and youll be performing it in each of

the given keys below, one at a time.
C D E F# A B D E F G A B
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1) Select a key from those above. (This sequence is given to ensure that you practice in
every possible key)
2) Find the lowest occurrence of that note on your bass and play straight
through to the highest note possible of that major scale and then back down.
(Dont forget to practice with a metronome set at 60 bpm.)
3) Next repeat the exercise except this time concentrate on completing it

WITHOUT ever using your 1st string. (Highest sounding string). If you use the
forbidden 1st string you need to start over the exercise.
4) When youve done that, again go through the workout now ignoring both the
1st and 2nd strings. You are to continue in this fashion until youve played the
major scale from the lowest note to the highest using only one string.
5) Again this entire sequence of dropping off string after string needs to be
practiced in ALL of the keys in the table above.
Good luck and see you in the next section!
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Lesson
15
MODES
Earlier on we said that a scale is quite simply a group of notes played in succession
that has a characteristic sound of its own. Usually these notes are separated by some
particular pattern of intervals.
Now think about this
How would the sound of that scale change if you were to slightly re-arrange that
same group of notes? I mean lets just say that you kept the exact same notes, but
you play them in a different order
Obviously the sound and quality of the scale itself would change, although there
would be some similarities and features of the parent scale.
As an example lets say we have the C Major Scale, (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C). If you
were to play that very same scale but you didnt start on the C note Instead you
started on the 2nd degree of the C Scale (you started at D) and ended exactly one
octave higher at the 9th note
What you would get is quite simply a variation of the C major scale that has its own
characteristic sound because of the fact that you started somewhere other than the 1st
as youre accustomed to doing.
You would have played the notes (D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D) and that type of variation
of the Major scale is call a MODE Its a mutation of the scale if you will, that
shares all the notes of the parent scale, but it has a slightly tweaked sound quality.
Keeping this method of mutating the scales, where we simply start on a different
degree and play the parent scale in the same order as it would have been played, its
obvious therefore that there are seven (7) different MODES for each Major Scale.
(Because there are seven different degrees that we can start from).
So if you were to start at the 1st degree and run the C major scale you would have
one mode
If you were to start at the 2nd degree and run the C major scale you would have
another mode and so on and so on all the way up to the seventh.
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So this is how we want you to start thinking of MODES.
Youll see this explained in many different ways, that are far more complex, but the
result is the same Just think of a MODE as a variation of the major scale that you
are playing. So technically youre still in the parent scale, but youre running a
mutated version of that parent Major scale.
In all fairness, this freshly arranged grouping in itself is also a scale of its own, and
each Mode is therefore given a name of its own. (Well use the C Major Scale as an
example Go figure )
Whenever you run the Major scale starting from the 1st degree, we call that variation
the Ionian Mode of the scale. (Yes, the regular version of the Major scale you have been using
so far is also known as the Ionian Mode).
Before, we applied a formula to a starting note to build a Major scale from the
ground up. Now were going to work backwards.
Using the notes instead as a starting point, we can also work backwards and figure
out each Modes unique Formula.
Heres an example (CD 1 Sound Sample 21)
C Ionian Mode C D E F G A B C
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Lets examine another. If you were start on the 2nd degree and run all
the way through to the D note one octave higher, youd be running the
Dorian Mode of the C Major scale.
D Dorian Mode D E F G A B C D
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We will soon see how to apply these modes to different chords in a

progression and so on, but for now lets just digest them. Continuing
on, if you were to start from your 3rd degree You would have the
Phrygian Mode; (CD 1 Sound Sample 23)
E Phrygian Mode E F G A B C D E
From the 4th degree youd have the Lydian Mode

F Lydian Mode F G A B C D E F
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(For the following, use your bass and knowledge of the musical alphabet
as a guide and fill in the blank spaces to complete the intervallic formulas)
From the 5th youd have the Mixolydian Mode

G Mixolydian Mode G A B C D E F G
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From the 6th youd have the Aeolian Mode

A Aeolian Mode A B C D E F G A
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And finally, from the 7th youd have the Locrian Mode
B Locrian Mode B C D E F G A B
So therefore the C major scale has seven different variations starting from seven
different points and again they are called the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian,
Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian Modes.
Now just like we needed to familiarize yourself with the visual and sonic shapes and
sounds of the different intervals before, youre going to have to do the same with
these Modes.
Unfortunately theres not really a magic bullet thatll get you around
simply learning these forms. You want to work at it until you know
how to play an Aeolian, Mixolydian or Locrian scale for any key that
you start in.
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And again, our ultimate goal is to be able to hear the scale played and to be able to
tell that its quality that of the Dorian To listen to another and say, Hey thats the
Phrygian Mode being used there and so on.
Now dont stress yourself out over being able to have your ear pick up the scales
right away. This is something that comes with time and avid ear training. However
do be sure to learn at least the patterns visually.
Here again are the shapes of the modes you want to memorize and on the CD youll
find their sound files as well. Now, to the right side of each diagram you should just
make a quick note of the Intervallic formula for each Mode.
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Lesson
16
Diatonic Harmonization
Ok like we saw before, when it comes to playing notes in music it can be done in one
of two ways We can play notes together, (Harmonically) or we can play them in
sequence (Melodically).
So far we have been looking at the major scale in a melodic fashion but it goes
without saying that each note in the major scale can also be harmonized or played
together with another.
So basically in this lesson when we talk about harmonizing the notes of the scale, we
are talking about taking the individual degrees and turning them into chords. (Bearing
in mind that the most basic definition of a chord is 2 or more notes sounded harmoniously together.)
Now heres something we want to stick in pretty early.
Many well learnt musicians will tell you that there is no such thing as a wrong note
played in a musical phrase Just a bad (or sometimes a really bad) choice .
So in other words, although we can stack any other note in the musical alphabet
against any other note, at certain times there are groupings that will sound better in
context to what else was played, than others.
Youll be learning a lot of rules here that you can use to make fantastic music and a
bit later on youll see how we can start breaking these rules like good musicians
should
So much depends on how the note(s) played are lead into, or introduced, and
followed up or released, but I just wanted to plant that thought into your mind.
Ultimately there really are no wrong notes, just bad choices for a particular phrase.
And what makes something a bad choice is how you introduce and exit the note.
Although we are going to be focusing on fundament sounds that work like magic
together, music is an art form and one of expression, meaning that if you have to
bend a few rules to express an idea so be it.
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For now however lets learn the rules and move on. Just store that thought in back
of your mind so that you dont become too rigid in your thinking.
Ok back to how we can harmonize the different notes of the major scale.
What well be focusing on in this lesson is called, diatonic harmonization which

means that were going to using only notes from within the scale to harmonize
against each other. (Again, lets learn and stick to the rules before we start twisting
them.) Clear enough? Great!
And if youre wondering now, what exactly is the importance of this harmonization
to me as a bassist, well plenty!
Apart from the obvious reason that knowing the structure of a chord gives a great
deal of clues for note choice in your bass line, musicians often times talk in code
that you as a bassist must understand.
For example, if youre in a room jamming with friends and the chordist says that
were about to jam over a ii-V-I progression, you need to understand that hes not
just referring to you playing the 2nd , 5th and 1st degrees of the key scale that youre in,
but that each degree in this case represents a CHORD or a grouping of notes that
now open up your options for note choices a heck of a lot more.
And secondly, have you ever wondered how some musicians can hear a song playing,
pick up their instrument and just start following through it almost predicting what
chords will come next?
Well a lot of that ability comes from understanding how the different scales can be
harmonized.
You see, when you understand that at the very root of most popular songs youll
encounter is going to be a certain family of chords that are pulled from the
harmonized scale, youve just narrowed down your possible chords a good deal and
now its exponentially easier to pinpoint what chords are most likely to be used in the
progression.
Ok lets just get into it
The first type of harmonization were going to focus on is to harmonize and create
TRIADS (3 note chords).
For this example, were in C as per usual and because you progressed through these
lessons as was suggested, you know that if we start on the first degree of the C Major
scale and play all the way through we are running what is know as the Ionian mode.
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Quite simply to create our triad, well be stacking the 1st, 3rd and 5th degrees of the
scale mode were in. So you would end up with three notes that are put together, all
from the same scale that you can sound together and get a harmonious chord.
Lets see what that gives us.
Notes In C Ionian
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
From the diagram above we see that the 3rd note played in the C Ionian mode will be
an E and the 5th played note would be G.
So harmonizing the 1st degree in the C scale, gives us a chord that contains the notes
C, E and G. (Well get to what type of chord this is shortly).
Lets say we want to harmonize the 2nd degree of the C Major scale the D note.
Wed use the variation of the scale that is derived from the 2nd degree which we
know to be the DORIAN Mode.
Notes In D Dorian
D E F G A B C D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
So if I was to run the Dorian mode and take the same 1st, 3rd and 5th degrees of the
Dorian Mode Id end up with the notes; D, F and A.
So to quickly recap, when we harmonized the first degree, we got three stackable
notes being C, E and G. When we harmonized the 2nd degree of the C major scale
we got 3 stackable notes being D, F and A, and we can continue doing this all the
way through to the 7th degree of the C Major scale, using each of the 7 different
modes we learnt earlier.
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Notes In E Phrygian
E F G A B C D E
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Using the Phrygian Mode, and taking the customary 1st, 3rd and 5th degrees would
give us; E, G and B.
Its pretty simple when you think of it this way, so heres what Why dont you
complete the table below by filling in the notes needed to harmonize each of the
remaining degrees. (Remember to use the MODE related to each degree as you
progress to find your answers!)
Degree to Harmonize Mode Notes In Related Mode Chord Tones

1st Ionian C D E F G A B C C E G
2nd Dorian D E F G A B C D D F A
3rd Phrygian E F G A B C D E E G B
4th Lydian
5th Mixolydian
6th Aeolian
7th Locrian
(Use layout on pages 76 79 to check your answers)
OK now we have all these 3 note chords. Weve turned all the single notes of each
degree into triads, so how do we name these chords?
Well Ill give you a few more rules.
First you gotta recognize that when we harmonize a major scale using 3 note
groupings (triads) well only ever end up with three different type of chords; Major,
Minor and Diminished chords.
The way we tell which type of chord is which, is by looking at how the notes that
make up the triad are spaced out In other word, you look at the Intervals between
the different notes and well be able to tell what type of chord it is.
Ok here are the rules
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When a triad has an interval of 4 semitones between the 1st and the 3rd AND it has
an interval of 3 semitones between the 3rd and the 5th that chord is called a Major
chord.
In music speak an interval of 4 semitones between notes is called a Major

3rd A distance of 3 semitones between notes is called a Minor 3rd.
So we can say what we just said in another way If the triad is constructed where
there is the ROOT note, followed by a Major 3rd interval then a Minor 3rd interval its
a Major chord.
Lets take a look at the other two types of chords well encounter.
Minor chords. The intervals here would be Root + Minor 3rd (3 semitones interval)
+ Major 3rd (4 semitone interval).
And finally a Diminished chord is one constructed: ROOT + Minor 3rd + Min 3rd.
Chord Type Construction

Major Root + Major 3rd + Minor 3rd
Minor Root + Minor 3rd + Major 3rd
Diminished Root + Minor 3rd + Minor 3rd
Keep reading even if you think its getting a little hairy A good example usually
clears things like this up. Lets examine the first triad we have. The notes there are;
C E G
If you were to go to your bass guitar and look youd notice that to move from C to
E youd go through a movement of 4 semitones then to move from E to G
wed go through a movement of 3 semitones, and again a 4 semitone jump is
called a Major 3rd and a 3 semitone jump is called Minor 3rd;
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N.B. Here the numbers 1st, 3rd and 5th are relating to the degrees in the Ionian mode!
As we can clearly see in the diagram, stepwise were going;
ROOT, Major 3rd, Minor 3rd

And looking back at the table above we see that this first chord grouping therefore
fits the bill for a Major Chord. Lets examine another.
The second triad we have is the one derived from the Dorian mode
D F A
Again to the bass guitar, we see that moving from D to F takes us through 3 an
interval of 3 semitones (Minor 3rd) and then from F to A an interval of 4 semitones
(Major 3rd).

N.B. Here the numbers 1st, 3rd and 5th are relating to the degrees in the Dorian mode!
The movements are;
ROOT, Minor 3rd, Major 3rd

and so the second triad fits the bill of a Minor Chord.
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The rest are up to you Fill in 1) the notes of each of the following
triads and figure out what type of chord the notes form using the table
provided above.
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(Answers provided below)
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If you were to continue looking over the others youd find the results are as follows;
The 1st degree harmonizes into a Major Chord

The 2nd degree harmonizes into a Minor Chord
The 3rd degree harmonizes into a Minor Chord
The 4th degree harmonizes into a Major Chord
The 5th degree harmonizes into a Major Chord
The 6th degree harmonizes into a Minor Chord
The 7th degree harmonizes into a Diminished Chord
and this holds true for any major scale you harmonize!
A bit earlier we mentioned the cryptic language that musicians talk in Lets see if
we can decode it.
After weve harmonized all the degrees of the Major Scale we end up with a
progression of seven (7) triads.
For easy identification well assign Roman numerals to each harmonized degree, but
when doing so we use CAPITALS for the Major chords and common case for the
Minor and Diminished.
So we get
I ii iii IV V vi vii
(Maj Min Min Maj Maj Min Dim)
Now when you see a musical progression referred to as a ii-V-I we know that if
you in the key of C, the triad chords that are being played are;
D min G Major C Major

ii V - I
Let that digest before you move on If necessary, read and re-read this lesson up to
this point as many times as it takes to get this clear.
Ok if you thought it was hairy before, lets take this a step further .
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7th Chord Harmonization

What do you think happens if we were to harmonize the degrees and group together
4 notes instead of 3?
Well wed just have to stack an additional note on top of the ones we already have.
Instead of having now what we call triads, well form chords called 7th Chords
because the additional note were stacking on top of the triad is a 7th degree.
Lets do a few as an example
Notes In C Ionian
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Notes In D Dorian
D E F G A B C D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Notes In E Phrygian
E F G A B C D E
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Again here is the table for you to fill in the blanks.
Degree to Harmonize Mode Notes In Related Mode Chord Tones

1st Ionian C D E F G A B C C E G B
2nd Dorian D E F G A B C D D F A C
3rd Phrygian E F G A B C D E E G B D
4th Lydian
5th Mixolydian
6th Aeolian
7th Locrian
(Use layout on pages 76 79 to check your answers)
And here are the new rules for identifying your new 7th chords
Chord Type Construction

Major 7 Root + Major 3rd + Minor 3rd + Major 3rd
Minor 7 Root + Minor 3rd + Major 3rd + Minor 3rd
Dominant 7 Root + Major 3rd + Minor 3rd + Minor 3rd
Minor7 5 Root + Minor 3rd + Minor 3rd + Major 3rd
As before fill in the figures below and, using the table above, label each
grouping by chord type.
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Here are the answers to the above
The 1st degree harmonizes into a Major 7 Chord

The 2nd degree harmonizes into a Minor 7 Chord
The 3rd degree harmonizes into a Minor 7 Chord
The 4th degree harmonizes into a Major 7 Chord
The 5th degree harmonizes into a Dominant 7 Chord
The 6th degree harmonizes into a Minor 7 Chord
The 7th degree harmonizes into a Minor 7 5 Chord
I ii iii IV V vi vii
(Maj7 Min7 Min7 Maj7 Dom7 Min7 Min7 5)
These four (4) diagrams should help solidify the point (Just to reiterate: For
now, remember that the numberings shown are relative to the respective modes of
each degree)
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Now dont sweat these rules too heavily But do try to understand them.
Were just taking our time and going through it all so you have a solid understanding
of whats going on and how we progress from one stage to another in a methodical
way. In the next volume youll learn some more about the notes we came up with for
the different chords and how they relate to parent major scale they evolve from.
But when we start looking at scales some more and how we can alter them, youll
already have this inside your system and itll all be second nature to you that you
know which TONES or notes make up a chord.
Were about to close this volume off, and youre probably wondering how come we
have yet to pay any attention the minor scale. Well
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1) Well get to it and its many different versions shortly.
As we said before at the core of Western music is the Major scale in fact
we will see how to think of other scales as alterations to the major scale in
the next Volume and really get into some exciting practical stuff. Im so
excited and you should be to. The foundation is now set and dry.
If you invested the time I recommended and did the exercises I

recommended man youre gonna love the next Volume to follow because
youll start seeing so many ideas gel and come together!
2) We have in fact been playing not one but two (2) variations of the
minor scale even if you may not have recognized it The natural minor
scale (and thats simply the Aeolian/6th mode of the major scale) and another minor
scale (one thats used heavily in improvisational music) was covered in the
Dorian/2nd mode!
So already without studying it, weve come across two (2) types of minor scales and
application of them will be seen in later sections!
The one thing I would want to show you before ending this section is two different
fingerings to run both variations of the minor scale weve met so far, so you can
practice getting them under your fingers from now Well come across even more
in a bit, but lets focus on these for now.
2 Finger Patterns for the Natural (Aeolian) Minor
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2 Finger Patterns for the Dorian Minor
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Page 98
Lesson
17
The 14 Day Cut n Dry, Accelerated
Roadmap To Bass Playing
Before you use this guide, please read the caveat presented on page 42 of this
book. It is very important that you understand why this is even here. No
kidding Please go back and read that if you havent already done so.
Learn how to hold your instrument, tune it and learn a

dependable way to fret and pick notes. (IE 1-finger-per-fret
Days 1 & 2 and walking-picking-fingers methods) Focus exclusively
on doing the 7 hand exercises presented in the lesson on
dexterity.
Learn and totally internalize the musical alphabet. You must
Day 3 know it to the point where you dont think about what comes
after what.
Focus on learning the open string notes and the notes of the
Day 4 & 5 first 7 frets, based on your knowledge of the musical
alphabet.
Learn the 4 note equations I taught to help you identify other
Day 6 notes on the fretboard.
Learn and internalize at least one finger pattern for the
Day 7
Major and Minor (natural) scales.
Use your drum machine and practice locking dead on the kick
Days 8 12 drum for as many different patterns as possible, at as many
different tempos as possible.
Practice with BGM JamBox over the most basic Major and
Days 12 14 Minor progressions, making use of your ROOTS notes and
other chords locking in time with the drum kick.
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In Closing
IC
Closing Comments
Well that does it for your primer lessons.
If youre totally new to the electric bass and or playing music on the whole, I
hope you enjoyed the first leg so far and that you properly digested the info
we covered so far
If youve been playing for a while, I bet you still found a lot of value in the
preceding chapters. Like I said there are things that go into better
musicianship that have nothing to do with theory We touched on some of
those things in this volume.
If this were conventional schooling, today would be graduation
Congratulations and I hope youre as excited as I am to get into Volume 2.
Alex Sampson. Founder,

www.BassGuitarTips.Com
www.BassGuitarSecrets.Com
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Page 100

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Volume

Home Study Course

2005 Alex Sampson / Bass Guitar Tips

Preface to the CG-X System

In my experience however, many times the 17 35 page crash-course bookshelf

1) You hear a bassist that flat out wows you

The answer is a resounding YES!

So I tip my hat to you because you know what you want!

So I beg you to be consistent... To practice often... To practice daily... To listen to as

And as you do so, remember we all start with an empty glass...

Just look at Michael Jordan.

I hope you see things this way too...

Know Your Bass

Some Basic Tools

1) A sturdy leather or nylon adjustable strap

Tuning Your Bass

TUNE BY EAR METHOD 1

TUNE BY EAR METHOD 2

But for right now, think of a harmonic as is this;

5th, 7th, 12th, 17th, 19th and 24th frets

Ok so heres how youre going to use harmonics to tune your bass;

(N.B. Playing a 12th fret harmonic means playing

MORE TUNING TIPS!

Getting Into Position

Right and Left Hand Technique

So heres what I want you to try

To be a little clearer heres what to practice

What do you do with your thumb?

Fixed Thumb Technique

Im hammering on this because as simple and as unimportant as it seems this is an

And always remember;

A Note Is Only Defined By The Bit Of

Uncontrolled, wildfire noise is by and large a complete no-no.

So please bear with us I know this is kinda boring Technique is never

Floating Thumb Technique

A Neat Bonus Muting Trick!

5 Crucial Last Minute Tips

I warn you I beg you

Theres a saying that practice makes perfect.

Quick Warm-Up Exercises

Left/Right Hand Dexterity and Speed

There are just a few rules

The look-ma-no-eyes-and-no-picking-hand variation will really test how good your

[1 = Index Finger ; 2 = Middle Finger ; 3 = Ring Finger ; 4 = Pinkie Finger]

Exercise #1: Chach

Exercise #2: Pick A Pair

This exercise focuses on working the fretting fingers in alternating

Now well reverse the order of the pairings like so

Hows about another permutation of the pairs? Heres the

Exercise #3: Birds on a Wire

Heres an old and very common workout I apply a twist to In order

Exercise #4: The Hourglass

Luckily its pretty straight forward.

Exercise #5: JPs Spider

Next heres a through workout made popular to bassists by the mind

Exercise #6: Chicks Lick

I wonder how many of you guys and goyles out there

The Role of the Bass

Im not sure which group you belong to.

Lets see if we can understand why.

Now lets expand a little.

And that gives it an almost scary amount of power!

Do you see where this is going?

Now its said with a lot of power comes a lot of responsibility.