The concept of playing in positions on the Bass, either on electric or acoustic, involves allocating one finger per fret over four frets.In Figure 1 (Fig. 1) you can see a G major Scale as the solid black dots on the fretboard. The other notes that are not in solid black are also notes of the G Major Scale that fall within the one finger per fret range.
If you played only the solid black notes you would be playing one Octave of the G Major Scale, from the root through to the Octave. As we can see there are however several other notes that we can play within our range.
If we look at Figure 2 we can see that if we play all of the notes from this position we can play a lot more of the scale. You can see that we can start playing the scale from the seventh degree (F#) and play through the G Major Scale and eventually get to the 11th scale degree (C).
We will call this position one or the 1st position as you can also see written on this chart. This is an excellent place to start to learn how to play positions on your instrument as you can use this pattern for any Major Scale. Try starting to use this pattern for a C major Scale or a D major Scale, aiming to get around all twelve keys in time.
This position will also cover the Lydian Mode of the G Major Scale. You can see that if you considered that the Scale we are using to cover with this position is the C Lydian Scale it fits perfectly in this position starting from the 4th Degree of the G Major Scale, C.
The positions on your instrument can also help you cover some of the possible chord extensions you are likely to encounter. You can see from this chart that by using this position you can also easily cover a CMA9 or CMA11 chord.
Author: Rock House Staff
©2010 Fred Russell Publishing, All Rights Reserved. This article can not be used without permission from the Author. To Contact the Author email curt@RockHouseMethod.com
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