Music Theory for Bass Guitar

This repository contains a collection of documents covering fundamental music theory concepts, with a focus on the 4-string bass guitar.

These documents were created and refined through a collaborative conversation with GitHub Copilot, aiming to provide clear, practical, and easy-to-understand explanations for bass players.

Quality Assurance: All TAB examples in this repository are automatically verified for correctness using TypeScript unit tests that ensure the fret positions match the described musical notes.

While care has been taken to ensure accuracy, please be aware that as an AI-assisted work, there may be occasional errors. Always use these guides as a starting point and cross-reference with other resources.

Table of Contents

• Fretboard Diagrams - Complete bass fretboard reference with memorization techniques
• Keys and Scales - Major and minor scales with practical TAB examples
• Intervals - Understanding distances between notes and their musical relationships
• Modes - Seven modes of the major scale with characteristic sounds and applications
• Pentatonic Scales - Five-note scales essential for blues, rock, and jazz
• Chords - Basic triad construction and chord theory fundamentals
• C Major Triads - Complete fingering guide for all triads in the C major scale
• Seventh Chords - Extended chords adding color and sophistication to progressions
• Cycle of Fourths - Key relationships and harmonic progression patterns
• So What Walking Bass Lines - Modal jazz walking bass examples for Miles Davis' "So What"

Development

This project uses TypeScript and Jest to automatically verify the correctness of all TAB examples.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18.x or 20.x
• npm

Setup

npm install

Available Scripts

npm test              # Run all tests
npm run test:watch    # Run tests in watch mode
npm run test:coverage # Run tests with coverage report
npm run type-check    # Check TypeScript types
npm run validate      # Run type checking and tests

How It Works

The test suite:

1. Parses all markdown files in the docs/ directory
2. Extracts TAB notation and associated note descriptions
3. Converts fret positions to musical notes using bass guitar tuning (E-A-D-G)
4. Verifies that the TAB plays the correct notes in the correct order
5. Handles enharmonic equivalents (e.g., D♯ = E♭)

This ensures that all educational content maintains musical accuracy as the documentation evolves.