Best Way to Identify notes on the fretboard?

[SOS Musician]

Hey all,

I recently picked up the bass guitar and am looking for some help on how to identify notes on the fretboard easily on a four string bass.
Any techniques or methods to find the notes fast are much appreciated.Thank you.

[Wonks]

Masking tape and a sharpie pen?

[Dynamic Mike]

Draw a fretboard pattern & write the notes out the right way up but the wrong way round! Most diagrams have the notes written out as you see them looking a the bass/guitar. This is fine for theory but as soon as you pick the instrument up I found it makes much more sense if you have a mirror image. Essentially start with the E string 1st fret in the top left hand box.

[Ben Asaro]

Really, the best way to learn the notes is to pick up some basic music theory: whole steps and half steps. On a guitar, each fret represents one half step. All notes have a half step between them aside from B:C and E:F.

I would recommend starting with the low E open and playing ascending scales up each string up one octave and then down, and then doing the same but going vertically across strings.

So, for instance, play up the low E string: E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, then back down. Same with the other strings. Then E to E again, but going up the strings instead of the fingerboard. You should not have to stretch more than 4 frets to do this.

[Exalted Wombat]

Hey all,

I recently picked up the bass guitar and am looking for some help on how to identify notes on the fretboard easily on a four string bass.
Any techniques or methods to find the notes fast are much appreciated.Thank you.

What you want is called "learning to play the bass guitar". Get a teacher, or at least buy a book. One which makes you read music, not some cop-out "easy" method. It's quite easy. Must be, I could do it when I was 7 years old!

[Sam Spoons]

If you have the motivation, definitely learn to read music, I didn't as a kid and still regret it (I have a good ear and could cheat so my teachers never caught on that I wasn't reading), I can read slowly but not easily these days but it's much easier to learn in conjunction with learning a new instrument. If you need to get playing quickly concentrate on the key positions first, E, G, A, C & D on the low E string and A, C, D & E on the A string. Use these to work out patterns of notes which fit the tune (and try to remember the names of those notes). If you can reliably and quickly find those you're set for most rock/blues/pop songs and it's quite easy to extrapolate the in-between notes if the song is in an "awkward" key.

Oh, and buy a tuner so when you play along with CDs you'll find the correct key as your bass will be in tune and at concert pitch.

[ef37a]

I did learn some of the basics of music notation at school (C:1958!)so when I started on bass guitar I soon found that you really only needed to find the root note of each chord and then you could play a natural "run" from that.

"Pop" music tends not to stray far from "C, F, G, A" keys, (at least not the Shads, Beatles and other stuff I grew up with!)

Find those root notes on the fretboard and 90% of your work is done.

Dave.