Master your fretboard with these 3 secret shapes

Learning the fretboard is one of the simplest steps you can take to elevate your bass playing. It can seem pretty daunting when you first start thinking about all those notes, on all those frets, on all four strings! But it doesn’t have to be that way…

In today’s lesson, we’re going to show you 3 secret shapes that you can use to totally unlock your bass fretboard. So grab your favorite 4-string, make yourself some good coffee and let's explore the magic!

We’re going to start by visualizing the neck in three different ‘blocks’. So, when you play, your mind goes, ‘I’m in this block, I'm in that block, I'm in this block’; and so on and so on. Block 1 focuses on major triad shapes within frets 1-5. We then look at the same exercise, but focussing on frets 5-9 as Block 2. The final position moves things up to Block 3, which covers frets 8-12. The fourth exercise links together all of the shapes that we’ve looked at so far.

Working through each of these triad shapes is a great way to learn how to move around the circle of fifths and that’s a big thing. The circle of fifths was invented to help musicians understand the relationships between different keys by illustrating each key and putting them in a convenient order.

Check the TAB frettings for each triad pattern. Use a pivotal approach with your thumb to allow fretting fingers to move across the frets from lowest to highest. The fingerings we’ve used are not set in stone. If you find a fingering that suits your own technique more easily, use it. We will only say you should try and play in constant time. Once you’ve learnt to play each of these triad patterns, you can start to have fun and use them as creative tools.

As you’ll see, some of the information in here is about things you already know – this lesson will help put all of that knowledge into perspective.