Bass Lesson: Getting to Know the Fretboard

Bass Fretboard

Photo by Carlos Paes

This is a lesson mostly for beginners, but it should serve as a great refresher for the rest of us.

Unfamiliarity with the fretboard has a lot of downsides. It’ll slow your playing, because your mind has to figure out where your fingers should go, rather than just instinctively knowing where you need to be. Your technique will suffer as well, because knowing your fretboard means you’ll be able to more logically determine the right pattern for playing.

One way to gain more fretboard knowledge is to use major and minor triads – root, third and fifth, and target notes.

This video lesson is broken into two parts. Enjoy, and let me know how it goes!

There are two parts to this lesson:

For more great bass lessons from Thomas "MarloweDK" Risell, visit PlayBassNow.com.

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Leave a Reply to lewtenantdan Cancel reply

  1. Allways is a pleasure spend some time watching your videos, Marlowe. It should be great, also, listen to an upright bass lesson :)

  2. I’m a self tought electric bass player of 10 years. Now begins the unlearning of bad habbits and replacing them with correct. Love you videos!

  3. Marlowe, has helped me a lot1 Keep Going…LOW!

  4. Always, always a pleasure applying your tips and methods to my practice a regimen, Thomas