Now that we’ve covered fundamental technique considerations, let’s move our focus to several scales that I feel are essential for bassists in most contemporary music. In addition to beginning to lay the harmonic foundation for our playing, these scales will help us gain a greater familiarity with our fingerboards (it’s hard to groove if our instruments are intimidating and mysterious hunks of wood and wires!).

This is by no means a comprehensive list, and doesn’t include many of the modes that are so important for navigating diatonic harmony (please refer to Lessons 12 through 16 for more on the modes). However, these scales are bare-bones minimum, “must-know” scales.

THE MAJOR SCALE

We played through the major scale in our last lesson. Let’s take a closer look at the C major scale. Note the two suggested patterns in the tablature. It’s really valuable to know many more patterns for negotiating these scales: these are just two of the most commonly encountered.

FIGURE 1

 

In terms of scale degrees, we can see that it’s defined as: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-(8). This scale is obviously a fundamental one to know, and one with which all players should be comfortable. GENERALLY SPEAKING, it can be played over any major chord. I am quick to place a condition on that statement, though, due to the whole idea of modes. Based upon the function of the chord within the particular key of the song, the proper scale may not be the major scale. A solid understanding of the modes allows us to immediately know the appropriate scale to play. We must bear this in mind, so that we don’t find ourselves inappropriately forcing that major scale, much to the other players’ chagrin!

EXERCISE 1

Play through the C major scale using both patterns. Be aware of which scale degree you’re playing as you play through them. Really work on assimilating them: you should be able to stop on any given note and know the scale degree being played.

Video Exercise 1

 
 

EXERCISE 2

Once you’re familiar with these patterns in the key of C, transpose them up and down the fingerboard and get them “under your fingers” in the other keys as well. You’ll note that the beauty of an instrument with consistent tuning like the bass (versus guitars - what’s the deal with that B-string?) is that these patterns can be freely transposed. If the pattern used to play a C major scale were to be transposed such that the root (or “1") were on “G”, it would become a G major scale.

Video Exercise 2

 
 

EXERCISE 3

An excellent way to practice scales is to play them in staggered intervals. This involves playing through each degree of the scale followed by that note’s relative 3rd, 4th, 5th, or whatever interval you select.

To illustrate, let’s play the C major scale in staggered 3rd’s. Starting on the C, or 1st scale degree, the sequence would be: 1-(3)-2-(4)-3-(5)-4-(6)-5-(7)-6-(8)-7-(9)-8.

Video Exercise 3

 
 

Do you see how that works? Each degree of the scale is the first note of a pairing, with the second note (identified in parentheses) being the appropriate relative interval.

EXERCISE 4

So that was the ascending version. Let’s complete the exercise by playing the descending version: 8-(6)-7-(5)-6-(4)-5-(3)-4-(2)-3-(1)-2-(7 below)-1.

Video Exercise 4

 
 

On your own, experiment with staggered 4th’s, 5th’s, 6th’s, and 7th’s. You’ll find that your assimilation of this scale (as well as others we’ll cover in subsequent lessons) will improve dramatically, as the intervallic jumps (especially the wider ones - 6th’s and 7th’s) are rather unforgiving of guesswork!