I am (ever so slowly) learning bass. Wish I had more time. In any case, so is my son, who just started string bass in 5th grade this year.

Anyway, I came across some guy selling a "system" for learning the fretboard of a bass supposedly in "45 minutes".

Anyone know what this is all about? Is there some "better system" for memorizing the board that playing & experience?

Thanks!

It's a complete joke. He tells you some stupid made up story about Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito watching Pam Anderson strip or something, then expects you to use that to memorize the fretboard. That guy should be arrested for false advertising. Unfortunately, he does give you a diagram of the fretboard at the end of the stupid story, so he's not entirely lying. Of course, he doesn't tell you what to do with it, so unless you know what to do with it already, it's useless. But if you knew what to do with it, you wouldn't need his idiotic program.

Here's lesson number one for music: If it sounds too good to be true, it always is. Take lessons if you want total fretboard command.

Anyone know what this is all about?

I'll tell you what its all about....separating you from your money.

Other than scales (which are probably the biggest help), playing, and pure memorization I've only found one thing that really helped me. Its not really a trick. I guess its more of an exercise.

What I do is I choose one note to focus on every week. I usually start out on the E and then move through the circle of fourths until I get through all twelve notes in the course of twelve weeks. So, when I start out focusing on E I will do this little practice run everytime I sit down to practice. I will play every instance of an E note, everywhere that it occurs on the fret board, from the lowest to the highest and then back again. All the while, I'm singing and saying, and really focusing on "E"....I play this slowly and let the sound and the physical position of my hands really sink in.

----------------------9-21-9--------------------
----------------2-14---------14-2---------------
----------7-19---------------------19-7---------
-0-12-24-------------------------------24-12-0--

Next week it on to A! Once you've ran through all twelve and really know them its no sweat to play all this exercise for all twelve notes in just a couple of minutes.

Chad

sounds like a way of making money from lazy and/or impatient and/or gullible people

even if it could teach you to immediately name all the notes on the fretboard in 45 minutes, it's still of limited use in actually helping you make music... so it can help you locate a D or an F# wherever on the fretboard.... whoop de doo, you still have to know when and when not to play the notes

Thanks all!

I kinda figured as much, but since you get no view of his "secret" you don't know what to go on. Everyone has different learnign styles, and sometimes there are shortcuts to the "aha!" factor that will hit your style.

For anyone who doesn't know which system is being warned against, it's called Fret2fret.

You can probably memorize a fretboard in 45 minutes and would probably score high on a test where you just had to point out the note, provided you had a good memory or used a memory system. What you won't be able to do is play what you hear in your head in 45 minutes or play what you see on a piece of sheet music in 45 minutes.

You can probably memorize a fretboard in 45 minutes and would probably score high on a test where you just had to point out the note, provided you had a good memory or used a memory system. What you won't be able to do is play what you hear in your head in 45 minutes or play what you see on a piece of sheet music in 45 minutes.

Well, I can teach how to figure out all the notes on the fret board in less than ten minutes...Wait....what was that guy charging? I'll charge you half to do it in 20 minutes and we'll still have time to shoot the breeze!

But you're right it won't make you intimately knowledgable of the fretboard, or teach you how to play. Theres a difference between figuring out how to name all the notes on the fretboard and being so in tuned to the fretboard that you don't have to think about the names of the notes.

Chad

Don't waste your money like I did.

I'm sure I posted about this somewhere else on TB.. the Fret2Fret guy has left his FTP site open so you can download his product FOC anyway! The idiot!

In anycase, the 45 mins it takes to read it would be better spent learning these two patterns

Cycle of 5ths:
C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb B E A D G

Order in which notes are added to chord:
C E G B D F A

I have seen his method.

His method can be useful.
But not like he is saying. "Playing like a pro in 45 minutes"

Totally lie.

I'm sure I posted about this somewhere else on TB.. the Fret2Fret guy has left his FTP site open so you can download his product FOC anyway! The idiot!

In anycase, the 45 mins it takes to read it would be better spent learning these two patterns

Cycle of 5ths:
C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb B E A D G

That's the cycle of 4ths. The cycle of 5ths is:
C G D A E B F# C# G# D# A# F

That's the cycle of 4ths. The cycle of 5ths is:
C G D A E B F# C# G# D# A# F
I thought the Cycle of Fifths was:

C G D A E B Gb/F# Db Ab Eb Bb F

??

I thought the Cycle of Fifths was:

C G D A E B Gb/F# Db Ab Eb Bb F

??

It's

C G D A E B F# C# G# D# A# E#

Which is enharmonically equivalent to...

Dbb Abb Ebb Bbb Fb Cb Gb Db Ab Eb Bb F

I thought the Cycle of Fifths was:

C G D A E B Gb/F# Db Ab Eb Bb F

??

no, if you've got a G, it's a 6th in relation to a B, no matter how many times it's raised or flattened

can't be the cycle of 5ths if it's not a 5th :)

Same notes, different names. However, it is true that going from the A# it should have been E# instead of F, but really, as long as you have the fifth with the same amount of steps to each one, it really doesn't matter.

That's the cycle of 4ths. The cycle of 5ths is:
C G D A E B F# C# G# D# A# F

Not going backwards it isn't! :D

Strangely, I was taught it that way, i.e. in that order and called cycle of 5ths, and that the 'up (doh!) a 5th' movement was anticlockwise. Obviously, I know those intervals are 4ths, but I still call it the cycle of 5ths. S'pose I better start using the right names really!

EDIT: Aah, I was probably taught it that way because Db is easier to get your head round than C#, etc. I have played charts with Cb, but I'd much rather settle for theorhetically inaccurate.

Hang on a minute... I was taught it that way because C resolves down a 5th to F, F resolves down a 5th to Bb. I.e. if you think of each note beinga 5th above the next one, it is a cycle of 5ths.

C to G is UP a 5th, but that's not how the perfect cadence resolves is it. Sorry Jimmy, I understand your point, but I think the version I've been taught makes mor sense as a learning tool.

:rolleyes:

All I can say is whatever.

:rolleyes:

All I can say is whatever.

Please, do not patronise me. There's really no need.

Re-read my post, I made edits. I stand by the way I was taught it.

I dont hear music moving up in 5ths, the most common resolve, the perfect dcadence, is V-I, so why not learn the Co5ths in that same order? Makes perfect sense to me.

Why would you even make a distinction between the flat name and the sharp name? That's my whole point. You're saying you'd use the flat names, but for no other reason than it's easier for you to remember flat names. That's what I'm not getting. In my case, I was trying to keep the 5th intervals correctly named when I named it off, and other than from A# to F (which I consider pointlessly confusing to call it E# when F is so much easier), I did. I feel it's easier to use sharp names in that case. But whether or not you subscribe to that or not, you use the sharp names when you're in a key like G or D and you use the flat names when you're in a flat key like F or Bb, so I wouldn't get all wrapped up in always calling them flat when they will be called sharps as often as flats depending on the key.

You have created a distinction without a difference, and you're needlessly getting wrapped up in the minutiae of flats vs. sharps. You need to know that the 5th from a B is an F# AND a Gb, a 5th from an F# or Gb is C# or Db, etc., and if you can't instantly make that distinction, you're going to get caught up when you get music written in F# and not Gb. Not you necessarily since I'm sure you already know that, but anyone.

I once got into a 10 minute argument with some guy I used to play with because of a song we were doing in A. I was teaching him this riff, and he says, "OK, what's that note you're holding out at the end?"

"C#."

"Where's that?"

"Here." (pointing to 4th fret on A string)

"That's a Db."

"Not when you're in A."

"No, it's a Db no matter what key you're in."

I ended up having to get out a book, show him a song in A, show him how it had three sharps and no flats, then explain why you don't call it Db in the key of A before he finally got it.

Also, bear in mind that the cycles of 4ths and 5ths are not cadences. They are learning tools to get you used to 4th and 5th intervals between all the notes. And if you must think of them as cadences to a resolve, have you never resolved from the IV to the root?

:rolleyes:

All I can say is whatever.

do you do the little 'put your hands up and thumbs together to make a 'W'' gesture too when you say it? :)

No, but sometimes I do this:

\/\/

OK, can I just say before I post... your post above really wound me up. I found it unccessessary. I'm not an idiot and I dont like being treated like one.. altho the first point is clearly debateable! Anyway, water under some bridge somewhere or other, on with the show :)

OK, I originally posted because I'm thinking of the Co5ths as a tool for learning two things...

1) The order in which V chords resove to the tonic, C to F, F to Bb, etc...
2) The order in which b's and #s are added to key signetures
C = 0bs, F=1b, Bb=2bs. And the other way, C=0#, G=1#, D=2#.

The benefit of 'my' method (actaully, it's Steve Lawson's method), is that the chords move in the way the V resolves to the I, and in the order b's are added to keys sigs, and backwards in the order #s are added.

As per your example, I definitely do not think of the note names as b or # regardless of the key signeture, I am aware of the theorhetical point of enharmonics and I do appreciate the point in using them correctly

I'm specifically thinking of keys, not notes. So your method seems less practical to me, because Db is easier and more common than C#.

I dont think we're really at cross purposes here, we're just coming from differnt angles

I actually see the Co5ths as follows

C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb/F# B E A D G

I.e. it moves DOWN in 5ths clockwise, and with the only enharmonic as Gb/F#, because as was mentioned above Gb is not a 5th above B.

Obviously, I should think of those keys enharmonic equivalents as well, for theory purposes, but generally you dont find many songs with Cb or B# in them, thankfully!

Well, I would apologize for winding you up with the whatever post, but you do your fair share of winding me up as well, and I felt your reply to my original post was just another example of you doing it as well. So :spit: ;)

Yes, you are right that we are coming from cross angles, but that doesn't make your way more right than mine is. And that has been your whole implication. You even said so. If you've seen the cycles written out as a circle, you will see both names listed in the circle, like this:

--------C
------F----G
---Bb/A#------D
---Eb/D#------A
---Ab/G#------E
----Db/C#--- B
--------Gb/F#

5th's clockwise, 4th's counterclockwise. Sometimes you'll see it written the other way, but no matter.

Please pardon the oblongness of the circle. And the dashes were there just to force this software to make it look like a circle, so ignore them, too. The first time I tried it, the software just ignored the spaces I had, so I inserted dashes as spacers.

So think of it any way you choose, but my whole problem with your original reply to my list was how you were putting your method of learning it over mine. They're both equally valid. Maybe it's easier for you to learn it the flat way, but it doesn't make what I was saying wrong or any less valid. It's not the name of the note...it's the interval that's important, and that remains constant.

Actually, *sheeeet!!!* I apologise, I did learn it that way.. I just never think of it the other way because, as I said, of the V-I resolve. LOL! :D

I never think "up a 5th", I always think "down a 5th".

So I wonder if there is any purpose in it being taught clockwise in 4ths?