Bass Guitar Lessons
Learning your keys - F# and Db Major
These lesson exercises are for bass guitarist to practice learning and memorizing the location of all of the notes in all twelve keys from the open string notes to the notes near the twelfth fret. These exercises are not necessarily scales as much as they are outlines of notes in keys on all four strings.
I get asked all the time about why some notes are sharp and some are flat. The only way this can be sufficiently explained is to understand “keys” in music. Guitarists generally use the circle of fifths. There are twelve keys in this circle: Seven natural keys, one sharp key and five flat keys.
F# Major
The key of F# major has one natural note and six sharp notes: F#, G#, A#, B, C#, D# and E#.
Yes, “E#” is not a typo. Every key requires one form or another of all seven notes. In this case, since F is already being used as “F#”, we cannot use the F note again, so we must alter the E note and make it an E#. The tone itself will indeed be F, but it will be read as E# in this key.
The outlined note in each exercise is the location of the “key” or root note.
Db Major
The key of Db major has two natural notes and five flat notes: Db, Eb, F, Gb, Ab, Bb and C. If you notice, we use the Gb note instead of the F# note in this key because Gb is equal in tone to the F#, however, we cannot have a sharp note in a flat key (and vice-versa). Db is also the enharmonic equivalent to C#.
.