Mastering Your Bass Fingerboard - The 4+2 Positioning Concept (L#165)

So first of all just let me come clean - I did not come up with this concept. It was shown to me by the amazing bass player Gary Willis, who I was lucky enough to study with many years ago.

Gary is very 'visual' in the way he maps out the fretboard - and that was great for me, as I'm also a very visual learner. I absolutely do not have a million note names flying through my head while I'm playing... my thought process is this: 1. What's the root note of the moment? 2. What's the quality of the chord? i.e. major 7th, minor 7th, dominant 7th etc etc I then assign the correct arpeggio (or scale if relevant) shape to the root note.

I have multiple arpeggio/scale fingering patterns memorised, approximately 3 for each chord type, which gives me the ability to have the 'correct shape' under my fingerings wherever I am on the fingerboard, regardless of what the chord type is.

So what's the big secret?...

What helps me tie all of this knowledge together is the 4+2 positioning concept that I'm going to show you in this lesson.

The 4+2 fingering concept is a fantastic way of mapping out your key centres on the fingerboard, and organising the huge amount of information we have to deal with when playing into more manageable chunks.

If you use and practice this concept the correct way (as I'm about to show you in this lesson), it will also help you greatly in learning where all the notes of the fingerboard are.

So without further a due, let's jump into this lesson!

As always, see you in the shed...

Scott :)