BassEducation Fretboard

Build a scale on your own fretboard, hear it on a real bass, label it your way, and save the shape. Your practice notebook, not a chord chart someone else drew.

I'm a working bassist, and this is the app version of what I made for myself as a student (using endless pads of graph paper): This is a place to build a scale, chord, or intervallic shape on your fretboard (or explore the full library of scales already populated within the app). See it, hear it, mark it up the way you actually think about it, and keep it.

Most fretboard apps hand you a guitar diagram and a picture. This one is bass-first, and it's yours to write in.

BUILD IT ON YOUR FRETBOARD Pick any of 61 scales and modes — the majors, melodic and harmonic minor, the pentatonics and blues, symmetric scales, and a deep world and exotic section (Hungarian minor, Japanese scales, maqam, klezmer, flamenco). Set your root, your tuning, your string count. Four, five, or six strings. Left or right handed views.

HEAR IT Every dot is a real sampled bass note, not synthesized. Tap one to hear it. Hit Play and the scale walks the fretboard the way a bass player actually fingers it — an even spread across the strings, not one long crawl up the G string.

MAKE IT YOURS This is the part I built for myself. Tap notes on/off a scale until it's the shape you actually use. Or start on a blank fretboard and place the notes yourself. Label them however you think: note names, scale degrees, solfège, or your own text — put "PIVOT" on the note you always pivot from. Save it. It's a shape in your notebook now.

I had a pad of graph paper loaded with shapes like this for years. Now it's in my pocket and it makes sound.

ORGANIZE AND TEACH Create the library of shapes you want to use and reference. Group your shapes into practice sets and work through them in order. Export any shape or a whole set as a PDF or image — a full-colour version, or a clean print-friendly one for handouts. Send a shape to a student with a link.

FIND ANYTHING Search by name in plain language — type "major #5" or just "major" and it finds what you mean, without knowing the formal name. Or search by shape: tap the notes you remember onto a small fretboard and the app tells you what scale you're playing, what it's called in other traditions, and what it's one note away from.

HONEST ABOUT THE REST No account. No subscription. No ads. Nothing is collected about you, and it all works offline — it's your notebook, on your device. One price, and it's yours.

Built by Damian Erskine — touring bassist, educator, and author of two books on bass playing. Bass samples by Soundiron.

NOTE: When using the app (iPhone only), I've decided to force a landscape perspective when viewing the fretboard in order to keep legibility high and everything looking pretty (and functional). Most other screens are in portrait mode for the same reason. There is a short animation rotating the screen between the two perspectives. iPad version supports full landscape or portrait modes across all screens.