I have been playing bass for 2 months now and from just playing about 2 hours a day i am starting to understand how the fretboard works...
basically how i just have my 12 notes in my chromatic scale then all the notes repeat in different octaves...
I am also finally realizing how as i descend up the neck how actually notes repeat and how it can really save me alot of time with easier fingerings...
But basically it seems really simple to me to know there are only 12 notes and they all repeat...and in most songs i just use a major or minor scale so the notes arent even 12 its less than that...
Anyone have thoughts on understanding the fretboard?
I was getting tied up in theory but my new plan is just to play play practice practice.... Its cool to jump around playing the same songs but with different octave notes thrown in there to make it sound different
Yeah, the fretboard is a supremely logical system. Once you start to see the patterns in chord shapes, scales, pentatonics, etc, it's a real "lightbulb" moment (or at least it was for me.
I made fretboard diagrams for the major scale, and diagrammed a crazy fret board with like 8 "strings " in fourths, so I could really see how the fingering pattern repeated itself across strings/octaves. It's really neat to see the 'big picture"
Have you memorized the fretboard yet? might be the next logical step.
When I was bored in HS I used to draw the fretboard write all the notes inside, and color code all the theory stuff I knew..which was C major/ A minor, and notations of things how to find octaves and where open string notes could be found on the neck. Helped me see patterns better...looking back today I would have colored in the shapes for major/minor chords instead.
