Originally published June 3, 2013, lightly edited for clarity.
After basic note organization has been done on the bass neck using the “boxes” (3 note per string groupings done with fingering and note function for the scale, arpeggio, and related pentatonic’s), exercises can be done to get used to moving through the scale pattern boxes in a more horizontal fashion. Those boxes and the function numbers behind them come from the number system approach to scales. It’s important to remember that the boxes or what ever system you use to organize your scale notes on your fingerboard is a temporary learning device, eventually the boxes should go away and you should just know where your note choices are both with your ears, mind and your eyes. You, in a way learn to see the sound. The exercise discussed in the following video is one of the next steps to mastering navigating your scale note choices on the bass neck. Enjoy your learning journey. Scale navigation is one of the fundamentals I teach. If you want a structured path through scale navigation, online bass lessons via Zoom are available.
Read the transcript
When I'm doing the, you know, the first one there, I'm visualizing the five box. When I go, I'm actually seeing the six box, actually the whole, all the strings of it. You know? Really? Yeah, I mean, I'm seeing, right? So I'm aware of where I am visually, from a box geography perspective, as well as a note function perspective.
Well, you want to have it in time at some point, to where you're feeling the pulse on every two notes or every four notes. In other words, treating these as eighth notes or sixteenths. Two and three and four and one, then two and three and four and one, and two and three and four and one, and two and three and four and one, and two and three and four and one, and two and three and four. And you want to get to the point where you can put on the metronome, one and two and three and four and, and just really lock it down and groove. Because, you know, the whole point of doing these things is to plug them in as part of your vocabulary, so you want to make sure that you're able to make them groove, right? So, by doing this counting thing, and in time.
So I'd recommend, first of all, you want to get your geography worked out before you start counting, you know. Also, you want to be aware of note function. That's why saying note function a couple times as you go through it, you know, just to create that awareness so that you know where you are. Also think about visual box references, in other words, where you are. Like, for example, if I'm playing this, if I go one and two and three and four and one, right there I know I'm in the seven box. I mean, I kind of see it right there, you know, I visually know where I am. So having that geographic reference to the neck, you know. So a time or two, think about that as you go through it, and the more you do this, the more these will start to just become natural awareness factors of what you're playing. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well.
So there's different levels of the way you will perceive this. There's going to be a note function level, there's going to be a visual geographic level, there's going to be a counting time frame level, you know. And all these will internalize, you know, where you're not going to really think about them at all. You're just going to know that's what you want to play, hear it and play it. So it'd be the same thing as if you had this, you know, speech you were giving, and you went back and diagrammed the sentences, you know, for an English class. Yeah, yeah. You have all these arrows and crap pointing back and forth, you know how you used to do that in school? Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like that kind of thing, you know, technical understanding of what you're doing, but you're not really thinking about that as you do it in the context of actually speaking to somebody with it. But to work and think, exercise wise, in these different levels is good for you. It's good for control. It can get a little tedious, you know, but I think they're good to do. I like them.
Now, you should also spend some time on sixteenths. So it'd be one, so every two times it'll come back to the one. All right, now do it in triplets. One e and two e and three e and four e and one e and two. So are you putting the emphasis on the one? Just now you're feeling the pulse on the downbeat. You don't have to accent the note there, you can accent it anywhere you want, but you're feeling the pulse on the downbeat. That's where the beat is. In other words, just like you're feeling eighth notes, one and two and three and four and, or sixteenths, one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a, or triplets, one e and two e and three e and four e and. It's just where you're feeling the pulse. It doesn't mean you have to accent that downbeat. You can, but it doesn't mean you have to.
