I always hear that you should practice in all 12 keys everyday, but I don't understand how thats possible, unless you devote a couple hours of each day playing scales.

When I practice scales, I start at the open position and play the scale in quarter notes, quarter triplets, eights, eight triplets, and sixteenth notes (not quite fast enough for sextuplets yet). Then I play it in 3rds, and then I do a 4 note coil. I repeat this for all positions. Then I play ascending through one position, descending for the next, and so on until I get to the end, then I work my way back to the open position. I play in a different key everyday. This takes maybe 20 minutes.

I'd like to work on all 12 keys everyday, but I don't see how I can work it in. Obviously I need to spend much less time playing each key. How should I go about playing through all 12 keys every day?

You could do some "classical" things like secondary dominants after working all the chords/notes in one scale and switch to the new scale without taking three hours if your pretty good at theory or improv. If you want a pretty good place to teach you about those go to musictheory.net. They have some great stuff in general but I would say that or Wikipedia. They explain it pretty well too.

Why would you waste time playing the same scales over, and over, and over again? Learn songs.

You could get Band in a Box and play to different songs in different keys and make practice more interesting.

Whatever you practice (scales, arpeggios, riffs etc), try practicing through the circle of 5ths. It's more applicable to playing music vs. scales and keeps things interesting.

Whatever you practice (scales, arpeggios, riffs etc), try practicing through the circle of 5ths. It's more applicable to playing music vs. scales and keeps things interesting.

+1

Take anything you'd normally do (scales, chords, arpeggios, licks) and do each through the circle of 5ths in sequence.

It's actually more worthwhile than simply shifting up or down chromatically because the jump of a 4th/5th is harder on your brain (at least at first).

If you get a good handle on this you could even jump at any abstract interval, for example a minor 7th.

What are your goals? Playing the same scale in one position in different rhtyhms is more geared towards physical technique than learning the scale. So, instead of repeating the scale with different rhythms, try it this way.

A. Play the scale over at least two octaves, or more. Don't have to start on the tonic as real music doesn't always start there. Be sure to sing what you're playing so you HEAR the note before you play it. Ascending and descending.

B. Then play the arpeggios of that major scale, two or more octaves so you span the neck, and again sing it.

C. Move up a fourth and repeat.

So, start with a G major scale going from the G at the 3rd fret clear up to the 12th fret and back down. Work out fingerings that allow you to play comfortably and efficiently. Sing "G A B C D E F# G", etc. as you do this.

Then play G B D F# G B D F# etc. from the 3rd fret to the 12th and back down, singing the notes. Then play A C E G, and repeat for each harmonized arpeggio of the G major scale.

Then move up to D major and repeat.

jte

Practice? Keys? Man, I knew I was lazy before, but now...

as a bassist I rather practice chord tones in every key a well as the modes in every key and then try and connect the modes with the chord tones. also jumping around and picking parts of the modes and chord tones all over the fretboard is another good practice.

I think that is a good way to go about it.

BahamaBass, would you giving an example of practicing chord tones in a given key, a mode in a given key, and then showing how to connect modes with the chord tones. Thanks in advance !!

BahamaBass, would you giving an example of practicing chord tones in a given key, a mode in a given key, and then showing how to connect modes with the chord tones. Thanks in advance !!

sure I'd be glad to give you a one on one lesson. I only charge $20 hr. only problem I think I live a little far from you.

sure I'd be glad to give you a one on one lesson. I only charge $20 hr. only problem I think I live a little far from you.

hey, I'm on vacation for the next two weeks. :D

hey, I'm on vacation for the next two weeks. :D

cool come to the Bahamas. :cool:

Absolutely practice everything around the key circle, but I go in 4ths, as music often moves in 4ths, and the instrument is tuned in 4ths.

By playing all our stuff around the circle, we:

1. Don't care what key it is in, as all keys are fine for us.

2. Can transpose very quickly. A handy skill to have when working with singers.

One of my instructors told me that after I can play a new scale/arp, etc about 25 x's without mistake, don't ever play it that way again. Instead, make music out of it. People don't pay $ to hear guys play scales, but they do pay to hear them make music out of them.

Since the relative intervals are the same in all 12 keys, playing a D major scale (closed position) is EXACTLY identical to playing a F# major scale. And so are the arpeggios, chords, etc. I practice a different exercise in each key, with all modes. It is a nice warmup & takes only a few minutes each session. I vary it up, the following is just an example.

KEY / Exercise
C / Major scale, 2 octaves, all 7 modes
F / Broken 3rds, 2 octaves (F-A, G-Bb, A-C, etc.), all modes
Bb / Broken 6ths, 2 octaves (Bb-G, C-A, etc.), all modes
Eb / All 7th chords in 2 octaves, ascending (EbM7, Fm7, Gm7, etc.), all modes
Ab / Stepped 6ths, 2 octaves (Ab-Bb-C-Db-Eb-F, Bb-C-Db-Eb-F-G, etc.), all modes
Db / Pentatonic scales (all 5 modes)
Gb / ascending / descending in groups of 3 or 4 or 6 (Gb-Ab-Bb, Cb-Bb-Ab, Bb-Cb-Db, etc.)
B / All 7th chords in 2 octaves, descending, all modes
E / Broken 3rds - ascending / descending. all modes (E-G#, A-F#, G#-B, etc.)
A / Broken 6ths - ascending / descending, all modes
D / Major scale, 2 octaves, all 7 modes
G / Repeat one from above

There. all 12 keys.

ian

I do one set from the low E or B all the way up as far as I can on the fingerboard. I do that through one full octave from 1st position low. Then starting at the top, I come down but in 5ths all the way to the root (after reaching the lowest possible played note). That's good for about 8 minutes of warm up. Then once up and down with arpeggio's and then on to whatever I need to actually learn to play. It keeps me up on where I am on the board, and loosens up the hands. If I am not doing new material, I will run through the intro and first four bars of the song, any chourus or bridge changes and then the outro. Be on time, start strong, end stronger, and try to nail the changes in between, it makes the band sound better, and keeps you working. That's my .02

Another thing I can't grasp is practiceing modes. How do you differentiate between them? All the fingerings are exactly the same.

Another thing I can't grasp is practiceing modes. How do you differentiate between them? All the fingerings are exactly the same.

start with key of C. run up he first mode (Ionian), run down the second (Dorian), run up the Phrygian, run down the Lydian...and so on all the way up the neck to C.

So with each mode you go from...

Ionian - C to C
Dorian - D to D
Phrygian - E to E

etc...

think of each mode represents a chord. there are 7.

the chords (7ths) in the key of C are.. Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, Am7, Bm7b5 (half diminished)

if we have chords then we also have chord tones we can play in each chord....1 - 3 - 5 and 7

we can then mix and connect modes and chord tones in the key of C. think of the notes of the chords being derived from the 7 note modes.

What are your goals? Playing the same scale in one position in different rhtyhms is more geared towards physical technique than learning the scale. So, instead of repeating the scale with different rhythms, try it this way.

A. Play the scale over at least two octaves, or more. Don't have to start on the tonic as real music doesn't always start there. Be sure to sing what you're playing so you HEAR the note before you play it. Ascending and descending.

jte

JTE brings out a great point are you working on the physical side of playing or are you working on the theory side of playing?

Practice must have a purpose and an application to be of any benifit. Now look at real life..what do you do that is repeated every day for the sake of it to improve your life? You can read, drive, walk talk etc, but you do not do the full range of these disiplines every day?

Music is no different. When you start out it is all physical, you do not have the technique to acheive what you want to play. As you get better on the physical side then the mental side comes in you listen to music with the idea to learn and apply it.
When you have a degree of technique you can start on the other side..the application and theory.

JTE gives a perfect example of how to proceed, great stuff. Now you need to apply it. I like to give students the evolution of popular music study.

Start at the beginning and listen, learn and apply blues.
Then rock 'n' roll and all that embodies.
Then soul music and gospel.
That should take care of the 50's for you.

Into the 60's with the British bands like Beatles, Small Faces, the way blues changed with Cream, Yardbirds, Hendrix,the way the rool of the bass changed, on through Beach Boys, later Beatles, and the start of Jazz Fusion, Rock in all its forms, In to the 70's.

Now you coming up to some interesting stuff as music fractures and lots of different genres appear. Now you have lots of chocies to apply all that you have learned from the previous two decades. You can go jazz, jazz fusion, prog. rock, funk, Blues etc. You now have player from Jaco to Jack Bruce. Jeff Berlin to Geddy Lee, Stanley Clarke to Bill Ferguson etc to listen to and apply what you have learned. Now that's application in an assemblance of some sort of order. I mean how will you get any of these players if you don't know where they came from, and what was influencing them as they grew up?

In short you learn songs and the development of popular music using and applying what you know now, which i believe is the purpose of music to a musician.....to listen and want to play it.

Another thing I can't grasp is practiceing modes. How do you differentiate between them? All the fingerings are exactly the same.

I'm an acknowledged opponent of how modes are generally taught, and I question the utility of putting much time into modes before you understand harmony. And this is a great example of why.

DO NOT LEARN MODES by learning C Ionian then D Dorian, etc. That's utterly pointless and distracting from what modes really offer. Learn them all from the same root. So, learn C Ionian, the C Dorian, etc. That way you're learning what makes Dorian different from Ionian, and different from Lydian, etc.

The whole "they're just the major scale started on different degrees" is such a gross over-simplification of modes, and it's totally NOT how they're used most effectively. Each mode has a distinct sound and you need to know that for them to be useful.

Another way to learn them is use them in context. So, record a vamp with an Amin7 chord. Then play around with A Dorian under that. Then try the other two minor modes. Learn to hear how they're different.

And again, don't ever trust people who trot out "for a progression of Amin7 to D7 to G use A Dorian, then D Mixolydian, then G Ionian". That TOTALLY obfuscates the fact that those three chords DEFINE a G major key center and using the G major scale is the what ties them together....
But I'm getting way far away from the topic here. Sorry for the rant.

In summary, to make the modes sound differnt you have to HEAR the difference in your head. Just running the scales, modes, arpeggios, etc. without your brain and your ear engaged isn't practice. It's at best physical training, but the music HAS to come first.

John

And again, don't ever trust people who trot out "for a progression of Amin7 to D7 to G use A Dorian, then D Mixolydian, then G Ionian". That TOTALLY obfuscates the fact that those three chords DEFINE a G major key center and using the G major scale is the what ties them together....


100% correct of course, AND understanding harmony and what modes are allows you to know and hear the obfuscated fact of what the key center is, so you don't need to ask JTE to work it out for you for each chart...

So expanding on John's example, if you have a ii-V progression such as Amin7 (ii) to D7 (V), the key center is G major (I).

What that means is that you can riff/walk within the G major scale over those ii-V changes and you will be diatonic. Try it out and hear it for yourself.

But you won't know that unless you understand the major scale, it's intervals, and how the modes are constructed from that.

Bahama Bass is right on track. I used to write columns on music theory in "another bass forum", now defunct.

Working modes servers many purposes including ear-training, pasttern recognition, and knowledge over the finger board. At a higher level, you take songs and dissect them into their component parts. Can you recognize the chord and supply the next chord for the following?:

Cm7, F7 .....???


Bm7b5, E7b9......???

Did you know where to put your fingers? If you practice the modes properly, this will be a sleep walk.

When started out on bass, I had the Jaco Pastorius DVD plus a great bass instructor who started me out on "Autumn Leaves". We worked on that song for a month; developing walking lines and understanding what was going on. There is a lot deep foundational work that one needs to go through with modes..

I'm an acknowledged opponent of how modes are generally taught, and I question the utility of putting much time into modes before you understand harmony. And this is a great example of why
.
But I'm getting way far away from the topic here. Sorry for the rant.

In summary, to make the modes sound differnt you have to HEAR the difference in your head. Just running the scales, modes, arpeggios, etc. without your brain and your ear engaged isn't practice. It's at best physical training, but the music HAS to come first.

John

I'm with you on that, and that's where we had an earlier disagrement, but you have stated my point that modes are a physical training and therefore learning them as C ionian, D Dorian, is a good way to train your hands if you go through all the modes in this manner, but pointless for the ear in order to learn harmony, but great for the ear for melody, and the fretboard. Once again it's application that i find lacking, that's why player go stale, bored or lost.
So good rant and i think its very "on topic" as the two run side by side, just wish more teachers and players would realise this.

You can only play what you know, and its about choices....Good player make good choices from their knowledge on what to play, bad players make bad choices from their knowledge on what to play. Having lots of knowledge is not bad, it gives you more choices, it's up to the player to apply those choices.

What I usually do is walk over a series of ii-V-I changes starting in one key, such as F. So, I'd walk a bar in Gmin, then a bar in C7, and then two bars in Fmaj. Then I go straight in a bar in Fmin, followed by a bar in Bb7, and then 2 bars in Ebmaj, and so on, following the circle of fourths. I run through this a couple of times without stopping, letting the whole process repeat itself. I then go into minor ii-V-I changes, going through the whole process again. Once I think I've gotten both systems down in my ears, I move a fourth up and do everything again so I can cover different chords in different tonalities.

most important thing in playing bass is playing the chords tones. generally the most powerful which will outline a chord and lay down a solid foundation for the rest of the instruments to play on top.... the meat and potatoes so to speak is 1 - 3 - 5. With 7 or add9...6 or whatever if that is the chord you are playing being the coloring of the chord.