i just don't get it

zacharylewis · #1 06-10-2006, 08:03 PM

alight...so i've been playing for 1-2-3 years

and everywere i have looked for help they always told me to practice practice practice on my sacales but i never really got around to it until here recently. And where i have been playing some of my friends, who play the guitar, are like lets jam...So of course i'm like heck yes lets go...bad mistake. because i have no clue what to do with these scales or how to use them with other instruments. anybody feel like helpin me out here

dukerutledge · #2 06-10-2006, 08:09 PM

scales are to train your ear, try just playing with your ear when you jam.

Correlli · #3 06-10-2006, 08:24 PM

try singing to yourself (in your mind) of what you might play.

doesn't matter if you make mistakes. just keep jamming.

ryco · #4 06-10-2006, 08:48 PM

Scales just let you hear the different intervals in relation to the root of the chord and in relation to each other. Good for runs and really cool when used with chromatics (notes outside the scale).

Scales and modes aren't super useful in jamming (unless that's what everyone wants to jam on). They are useful in hearing sound shapes, if that makes sense.

Mostly scales are a method for individual practice, ie in the woodshed.

Hope this helps.

steveb98 · #5 06-10-2006, 10:06 PM

Scales are tools like a screw driver. Some people don't do much with a screwdriver other than tighten a screw or pry open a can of paint. Put the same screwdriver in the right hands and you get a great bass setup, a perfectly tuned racing engine, or electronic gear tweaked to sound sweet.

Scales help develop technique if you focus on correct fingering and play in time with a metronome.

Scales help develop the ear. All the interval of your bass lines come from a scale. The chords you are making bass lines for came from harmonized scales.

Scales define the tonality of the songs you play and give you a set of notes that work in that tonality.

Scales are the notes of the solos you hear and like.

Scales are a way to communicate with other musicians. They allow us to put labels on a sound for analysis and documenting ideas.

Some musicians don't know scales, but are still using them.

How we learn, study, and use scales changes as we advance in our playing.

My guess is you have learned a handful of fingering for scales. You haven't learned the chords/scale relationships necessary to use them to improvise with. You haven't spent much time by yourself taking a scale and trying to jam with it on different chords. Doing that would teach you what some call "Avoid" notes in scales. Not all notes in a scale work with some chords, you learn which notes those are and to avoid them. Actually you learn not to use them on strong beats. This is a process that never stops as you learn new scales, new chords, and new chord progressions. Scales are a tool and you have learned the basic use, now time to start learning the other things the tools can do for you.

Richard Lindsey · #6 06-10-2006, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryco

Scales and modes aren't super useful in jamming (unless that's what everyone wants to jam on). They are useful in hearing sound shapes, if that makes sense.

Mostly scales are a method for individual practice, ie in the woodshed.

I don't think I'd agree with this. Scales and modes are extremely useful--how else do you establish the tonality or modality you're playing in?

Unless you mean scales strictly as rows of notes played in order, from first to last? If so, I see what you mean, but I'm thinking of scales as the sets of notes that define a tonality or modality--they can be selected from, and they don't have to be played in order.

Some folks oppose using chords to using scales, but I dunno--to me it's all the same knowledge, since a scale can be thought of as just a way of filling the gaps between chord tones, and chords can be thought of as just selected combinations cherry-picked from scales.

paulraphael · #7 06-11-2006, 10:36 AM

you're making a common complaint ... that practicing scales makes you good at playing scales, but isn't helping your music.

it's important to find a way to practice the scales that relates them to music. running up and down them doesn't usually help much.

one technique that helps a bit is to play "broken" scale patterns. which means not just running up and down the whole scale, but going up and down in patterns ... like up a 3rd, down a 2nd, up another 3rd, down a 2nd, etc.. there's no limit to the number of patterns you can come up with using different intervals. these patterns will clue you in to more of the melodic possibilities that exist inside the scale.

there are also ways to do this that combine playing the scales with theory and with ear training. Jerry Jemmott has a brilliant study technique that does this. I ghost wrote an article for him for Bass Player several years ago that explains this. I could email you a copy of it (at least of the unedited version) if you're interested.

ryco · #8 06-11-2006, 10:37 AM

I was oversimplifying to be sure, RL. For a young cat who hasn't played that many years to walk into a jam session and start running scales isn't going to sound very satisfying to his ears (or I assume that is what his post was about). This is why I titled my post mechanics/creativity - running scales in a jam isn't going to be very satisfying.

For you and me, with (I assume) more years under our belts, to walk into a jam and have fun and explore with scales is going to be different because we hear them and can play with them. And yeah, we'll break 'em into thirds, upside down, inside out, and whatnot. And it's way fun jamming scales and modes when everyone in the room (drummer optional) is hip to their construction/sound.

Of course scales are important in establishing tonality. No, I don't oppose using chords over scales, or vise versa, and I agree with you it's all the same thing. My postal intention was I understood what Zach was saying, to acknowledge running scales probably didn't sound very interesting in his jam session and to help him "get" what scales could be useful for (although I think steveb98 did a much better job at expressing this!).

peaces, -Ryco

zacharylewis · #9 06-18-2006, 08:14 PM

thank you guys...helped me out alot but i have more problems. I was lookin at some music that the "band" at my church plays. They have the words writen out on the page with guitar qhords written over the words. Now I understand that when the guitar plays a G...that I can simply play a G on the bassand this is more then fine for church play. But if I want to take this same concept outside of church would it go like this...if the guitar plays a G does that mean that I can choose what type of scale I want to use and then play any note in that scale in any order that i want until the guitar changes the chord that they are playing....i might be totally wrong but thats what i get when i think. And one more thing...i used to be really close to alot of old timers who were amazing at every instrument under the sun...and the lead guitarist would just look at them and say "key of G" and they just pulled beautiful music out of their butts...what was going through their head when he said that?
thanks alot in advance