The 2 Position Bass System: Scales, Chord Tones and Chords

Most bass books teach you five scale shapes per scale. This one teaches you two.

Every string on a bass is tuned a fourth apart, so a pattern has exactly the same shape wherever you start it. There are no exceptions and no adjustments. Most bass methods ignore that and hand you guitar-style box patterns with two strings chopped off. I don't think you need them.

The 2 Position System gives you two one-octave patterns that start from the same root note. Position 1 goes up the neck from the root, and Position 2 goes back from it. Every note from the root to the octave has one fixed place in each. Learn the two positions and you know where every scale, arpeggio and chord tone lives.

What's inside

• The two positions, and why every note has exactly one address in each
• A fingering rule that tells you which notes need a stretch, and which scales and chords fit one finger per fret
• Twelve scales in both positions: pentatonics, blues, major, the modes, harmonic and melodic minor
• Scale pairs: how changing one note changes the whole sound
• How the positions interlock and cascade across the neck
• Chord tones for twelve chord types, shown inside the scales they come from
• A walking blues built from three four-note cells and one rule
• Two-note chords, shells and 10ths that actually work on bass
• A short chapter for five-string players
• A three-page visual reference with every scale and chord at a glance

The format

It's a 36-page PDF, 8.5 x 11, and it downloads instantly. There's no notation and no tab. Everything is on clear fretboard diagrams, labeled with intervals, so it works in every key. The diagrams stay sharp on a tablet or laptop, and the pages print cleanly in black and white if you'd rather have them on a music stand.

This isn't a book of shortcuts. You still have to put the time in, but you'll spend it playing bass lines instead of memorizing shapes.