Learning the Notes
To be a good musician, it is important to be able to play equally well in all keys. To do this you will need to know all the notes on the fretboard from memory. A good way to learn the notes is to take one string at a time. Call the notes which are not naturals sharps as you ascend and flats as you descend. A diagram of the second string is shown here as an example.
The dots on your bass are also good points of reference. You can use them to help the memorizing process. Play the notes at each of the dots and name them out loud as you play. The fingering is not important here, just the note names.
Next, pick the name of a note at random and find it as quickly as possible. When that becomes easy, move on to the next string. The following diagram shows all notes available on the bass. Work on learning all the notes on one string at a time in the manner previously presented.
When you are comfortable with each string, try finding the same note on every string. Often a note will appear more than once on the same string, e.g., Bb or A# on the 1st string occurs at both the 3rd and 15th frets.
