The 2 Position Bass System
Bass scale patterns, chord tones and chords in two positions
Most bass methods hand you five box patterns per scale, borrowed from guitar with two strings missing. On bass every string is a fourth apart, so a pattern has the same shape wherever you start it. This book uses that: two positions per scale, and every note in one fixed place.
Two bass scale patterns instead of five
The usual approach to bass scales is five or seven box patterns that tile the whole neck, learned one after another before any of it turns into a bass line. I think that’s the wrong way round, and on bass it’s especially unnecessary.
Here you learn every scale as two one-octave patterns that start from the same root. Position 1 goes up the neck from the root. Position 2 goes back from it. Each position holds all twelve notes from the root to the octave, each in exactly one place. A scale is just a selection from that grid, so changing scale means moving a finger, not learning another shape.
From Chapter 1: A minor pentatonic, root on the 5th fret of the E string. Two small patterns from one root. Move the root and both come with it.
Scales, chord tones and chords on one map
On bass these aren’t three subjects. A bass line is mostly chord tones, joined up by scale notes and chromatic notes. So the book puts all three on the same two positions instead of teaching the same notes twice in different layouts.
Chord tones are the core. Every chord type is shown inside the scale it usually comes from, so you always see where your connecting notes are. A simple fingering rule tells you which notes need a stretch, which is why major and dominant chords sit comfortably in one position and minor chords fit both.
There’s also a chapter on how the positions interlock. Every position ends on a root, and that root starts the next one, so the patterns cascade across the neck instead of sitting in separate boxes.
What’s inside
The two positions
Two one-octave patterns from the same root, and why every note has exactly one place in each.
Finding the root
Every note on the E and A strings, and why every key is within a few frets of your hand.
Scales
Twelve scales in both positions, from the pentatonics and blues to harmonic and melodic minor.
Scale pairs
Scales that differ by one note, and how moving one finger changes the whole sound.
How the positions interlock
Each position ends where the next begins. The cascade across the neck, in every direction.
Chord tones
Twelve chord types in both positions, shown inside the scales they come from.
Chord tones in use
Root and 5th, approach notes, and a walking blues built from three cells and one rule.
Chords on bass
Two-note chords, shells, 10ths and high triads that sound like chords, not mud.
The five-string bass
What the low B adds, and why nothing in the system changes.
Reference
A fretboard map plus every scale and chord at a glance, on three pages.
Who it’s for
You play a four-string bass, you can find a root note, and you’ve either tried the box-pattern approach and stalled or never wanted to start it. Five-string players are covered too: everything works as written, and there’s a short chapter on what the low B adds.
You don’t need to read music. Everything is on fretboard diagrams labelled with intervals, so it works in every key. If you want pages of notated grooves to copy, this isn’t that book. It’s the map you’d use to write your own.
Two patterns. Every note in one place.
The 2 Position Guitar Scale System
The original: two positions per scale across the whole guitar neck, with scale changes, stacking and arpeggios.
See the book →No Shapes
An interval-based approach to improvising and building chords. Written for guitar, and the idea transfers straight to bass.
See the book →