All the Chords I Needed to Know I Learned at My First Lesson!

The other day someone asked: how many chords are there on the bass? Good question! Six, ten thousand, a million - no one knows - but what we do know is that there are only 5 simple shapes from which all chords are created!
To begin, let’s imagine a puzzle box. Visualize the picture on the box and see it as a “whole” picture. Now, take a pair of scissors and cut this whole picture into 5 pieces. How hard is it to put together a puzzle with only 5 pieces? Easy, right? Well, the “picture” on the puzzle box is the 7 letters of music: A B C D E F G placed horizontally (east and west) on each string of the whole fretboard. For this lesson, the whole fretboard will be 4 strings and 13 frets. Figure 1.



The 5 puzzle pieces are the 5 non-movable "open" major chord shapes: E D C A G. You probably already know these chords and you might have learned them as CAGED. Figure 2.



To see how these 5 major chord shapes “connect” to create a holistic fretboard, we need to know the 3 different letters that "spell" any major chord triad. For this lesson, we’ll use the F major chord triad as our example.
The F major chord triad is spelled: F A C and these 3 letters may be combined in any order. For example: FAC, ACF, CFA, FCA. Now, as we move up the fretboard and group these 3 letters vertically (north and south), the 5 movable F major chord forms appear! Figure 3.



Are you having a little trouble seeing the 5 movable F major chord forms? To help you visualize them more clearly, let’s place “squares” around the 3 letters FAC. Figures 4 through 8. Congratulations. Now you can “see” all 5 F major chord forms “connected” on your holistic fretboard. No one knows any more vertically grouped F major chord triads than you do!



Now, by “shifting” the 5 movable major chord forms up and down the fretboard to different "root" letters, all other major chords can easily be located and played. Got your set of Bass Fretboard Flashcards yet?

Till next time, have some fun connecting the 5 puzzle pieces and enjoy playing the beautiful holistic fretboard picture. I’m listening...