Learning scales

[Groove Master]

Originally Posted by chadgrimes

Plus consider this. Scale players never really play any chromatic notes. For example, if I saw a chord progression that went from Cmaj7 to Dm7, I might walk quarter notes over the C chord as C G C C# to D F A A# to the next chord. Scale people never seem to play anything but the scale notes and would have a heart attach seeing a C# over a C Chord. I say it's a chromatic passing tone on the weak 4th beat and if u get scales off your brain u could think that way too.

i didn't know we could categorize musicians that much!!!

What happens if someone use the other side's tools???

[Groove Master]

Originally Posted by chadgrimes

Plus consider this. Scale players never really play any chromatic notes. Scale people never seem to play anything but the scale notes and would have a heart attach seeing a C# over a C Chord. I say it's a chromatic passing tone on the weak 4th beat and if u get scales off your brain u could think that way too.

U think too much! Just play!

[Febs]

chadgrimes, I'm curious about how you teach your students to identify chord tones without using scales.

[chadgrimes]

Scale people think too much, that is the whole point of my discussion. If u just learn your chordal tones and forget all this scale non sense u can play without hardly thinking at all.

[jchrisk1]

Originally Posted by Febs

chadgrimes, I'm curious about how you teach your students to identify chord tones without using scales.

My thoughts exactly. Especially after he said that "chords are every other note of a scale". Without knowing the scale the chord is derived from, how would you be able to find the third, fifth, and so on...

[chadgrimes]

Easy...you teach students to read Chord Tone ARPEGGIOS! Look them up. This forces students to See and UNDERSTAND the chord tones.

For example, students learn
Major triad arpeggios
Minor triad arpeggios
Maj 7th arpeggios
Dom 7th arpeggios
Min 7th arpeggios
IN ALL POSITIONS.
Watch the Carol Kaye Video she runs through some.
Look up Pat Metheny for guitar and he will tell u also.

[JoeWPgh]

Chad? I am a complete loss to comprehend what you mean by 'scale people'. I know my scales, I know my chords and the chromatic grace notes that might be considered neither. I think we all agree that you have to understand chord structure, but the relevent scales to those chords come right on the heels of that. I would argue you should get a solid grasp on that before you reach for the chromatics

[Febs]

Originally Posted by chadgrimes

Easy...you teach students to read Chord Tone ARPEGGIOS! Look them up. This forces students to See and UNDERSTAND the chord tones.

So your students just learn arpeggios by rote without having any understanding of how to derive the notes in the arpeggios for themselves?

[grass132456]

You should buy this book:
http://www.amazon.com/GT3-The-Bass-G.../dp/0825821819

It's a nice little book with literally every scale you need XD

[chadgrimes]

Joe kudos that u know your scales, chord tones, chromaticis, etc. Now I'm going to tell u what the jazz greats will tell u. Forget 60 percent of that garbage u know. It's too much thinking. Know your chordal tones and move your phrasing with the chord changes. Knowing the chordal tones forces players to put chord tones on strong beats and everything else is acceptable on weak beats. I'm trying to help u see. Let me put it to u this way.
Most scale players see a chord like C major and think they have C D E F G A B open to them. The problem with most scale players is they don't know which is the chord tones. So over a C major chord they could play F note which will sound terrible over a strong beat and unless u resolve that quickly to a E or G note u are going to hear a minor 2nd clash. The other problem with most scale people is u run the risk of playing alllllll non chord tones over a measure. For example, playing only a D, F, A note over a C Chord. Scale people do this a lot because they have no concept of harmony. Again, seeing C D E F G A B for a chord is not the way to approach it. And I don't teach rote. Students learn to read notes and they learn chord tones.

[Groove Master]

Originally Posted by chadgrimes

Joe kudos that u know your scales, chord tones, chromaticis, etc. Now I'm going to tell u what the jazz greats will tell u. Forget 60 percent of that garbage u know. It's too much thinking. Know your chordal tones and move your phrasing with the chord changes. Knowing the chordal tones forces players to put chord tones on strong beats and everything else is acceptable on weak beats. I'm trying to help u see. Let me put it to u this way.
Most scale players see a chord like C major and think they have C D E F G A B open to them. The problem with most scale players is they don't know which is the chord tones. So over a C major chord they could play F note which will sound terrible over a strong beat and unless u resolve that quickly to a E or G note u are going to hear a minor 2nd clash. The other problem with most scale people is u run the risk of playing alllllll non chord tones over a measure. For example, playing only a D, F, A note over a C Chord. Scale people do this a lot because they have no concept of harmony. Again, seeing C D E F G A B for a chord is not the way to approach it. And I don't teach rote. Students learn to read notes and they learn chord tones.

For a newcomer, you make a not so nice entrance here.

Again, you don't want to look at nothing else but your way. Very close minded you are. It is very difficult to grow with such a wall in your brain.

[chadgrimes]

Sorry groove, don't mean to do that. However, one could argue the same about you. How about we agree to disagree and just leave it at that.

[JoeWPgh]

I'm at a loss to where I'm suddenly against arpeggio. The chords are an important thing, even the most important, but that's still just a part of it. The relationship of the chords define what notes best constitute a scale. Who is against chords??

[Groove Master]

Originally Posted by chadgrimes

Sorry groove, don't mean to do that. However, one could argue the same about you. How about we agree to disagree and just leave it at that.

I will never say that CT are useless or scales are. These are some of the tools to make music. I do use both and try to come up with new ways all the time and learn something from the simplest things as well.

[Ric5]

I have been playing bass since 1968 ... I have not yet ever played scales in a song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIjobdArtiA

[chadgrimes]

Joe...against chords? LOL, you best get over that because music and Bass in general has EVERYTHING to do with CHORDS. Every song u play is built of a chord progression. Every song you play that has a written bass line is 95 percent or more chord tones! Think that is a matter of coincidence!

[MarkMgibson]

Originally Posted by chadgrimes

Joe...against chords? LOL, you best get over that because music and Bass in general has EVERYTHING to do with CHORDS. Every song u play is built of a chord progression. Every song you play that has a written bass line is 95 percent or more chord tones! Think that is a matter of coincidence!

Did you say you were 16 years old? Music is made up of two things - Melody and Harmony - if you have no understanding of scales, how can you play melodically? You've glommed on to this one video, and taken it as law. She's a great musician, but she contradicts herself all through that video. She talks about chromatic runs, and she even plays scale runs all through that video.

As for your "re-inventing the wheel" comment: what a load of bollocks. Scales have always been taught in music, so you're simply speaking out of the wrong orifice.

Perhaps when you learn to form sentences and paragraphs, you may also learn to read. When you do, hopefully your musical knowledge will increase. One can only hope, because I've never read (or tried to read) so much garbage in all my life.

[Fergie Fulton]

Originally Posted by chadgrimes

Joe kudos that u know your scales, chord tones, chromaticis, etc. Now I'm going to tell u what the jazz greats will tell u. Forget 60 percent of that garbage u know. It's too much thinking. Know your chordal tones and move your phrasing with the chord changes. Knowing the chordal tones forces players to put chord tones on strong beats and everything else is acceptable on weak beats. I'm trying to help u see. Let me put it to u this way.
Most scale players see a chord like C major and think they have C D E F G A B open to them. The problem with most scale players is they don't know which is the chord tones. So over a C major chord they could play F note which will sound terrible over a strong beat and unless u resolve that quickly to a E or G note u are going to hear a minor 2nd clash. The other problem with most scale people is u run the risk of playing alllllll non chord tones over a measure. For example, playing only a D, F, A note over a C Chord. Scale people do this a lot because they have no concept of harmony. Again, seeing C D E F G A B for a chord is not the way to approach it. And I don't teach rote. Students learn to read notes and they learn chord tones.

Interesting reading you thinking and yes to a degree you get it right, but you get it wrong just as much, you use what is basic standard theory and try and sell it as of you are the only person that seem to understand it.......then this post.

You use the phrase "forget 60% of that garbage", so you have fallen into the modern idea that only the immediate relevant information is known, the other stuff does not matter.

What I, and other are saying, is you do not forget 60% of what you learned, you use 40% of what you learned. So if chord tones and such is 100% of what you know, what have you in reserve to expand on....... It seem myself and other have another 60% to fall back on where you may have nothing???

You use words that mean the same thing, you apply what you consider to be the meaning of what you understand, you have gaps because of you use the advice you give out........and using your own words, I estimates you may have about 60% worth of gaps spread over what you think and know.

For example, "chord tone arpeggios are not scales" well chord tones are arpeggios. I know you will labour the point using the limited definitions you know and say they are not, but really they are.
Why do we have triads and arpeggios?.......surely a triad is just an arpeggio with on note taken away in your thinking?

What about Pentatonic's, surely they are just chord tones with an added note in your thinking.....or are they better viewed as a scale with two notes omitted, and if it is called a Pentatonic scale, then yes, chord tone arpeggios as you call them.....are scales.

So what are scales.....not in music, but in definition and why is the word used in music?
Scale, the definition that music uses it for, ratio of distance. That use added a new definition, a sequenced set of notes.
That is the distance between notes, tones, or intervals.....the word scale is not what matters.
You talk about passing note, so if passing notes are not an chord tones, then what are they and how do you learn about their use?

You seem to want to use all the notes of a scale without calling it a scale.

If a climber asked me to scale a wall, I would never asume he wants notes for it. The same as if I was asked to remove the scales from a fish, I would not expect to remove notes, or if I was asked what scale the map I was reading from, I would not be looking for notes to form a key.....and so on, the word scale is not an issue.

Good luck with what you do, and if it works for you fair enough, but if you teach, teach them everything and let the student decide what they want to use.

[Nashrakh]

Originally Posted by JoeWPgh

I am a complete loss to comprehend what you mean by 'scale people'.

You know, those Reptilians in all them conspiracy theories. Apparently there's a conspiracy going on to infest all of us with scales.

[Johnny StingRay]

Originally Posted by chadgrimes

The stone, no offense taken. let me clarify a bit more for you. I hear what you are saying about walking into different progressions on scale tones. However, NONE of the greats see them as scales. They understand CHORD TONES and non chord tones. The problem with scales and reading around scales is that the hand is locked into motionless scale patterns and that is NOT how the real true bass players play. It is funny how everyone in today's world has scales on their brain and NO ONE ever mentions chord tones. People will go crazy trying to learn useless scales and yet when I ask bass players the notes that make up a Cm7b5 chord they look confused and cant answer questions like that. A bass player should be able to see a chord like that and say quickly, C, Eb, Gb, Bb. Or when they see Fmaj7 be able to say and play F, A, C, E right away. But players now adays cant because they have scales on their brains. Now listen very closely to this advice. Sure, you can add up all the notes of a solo and come up with some scale name but that is not how the greats see the solo. Some times its best to look at a guitar player solo like Eddie Van Halen. Watch his hands, they go all over the neck of the guitar, however, a theorist will add up all the notes and say, eddie played a C mixolydian, yadda yadda scale. Sure if u add up all the notes yeah I'm sure u can box it up in a pretty name, but conceptually, that is not how Eddie saw it. What scales fail is in the PHRASING. What is Eddie doing u ask? Simple, he sees the solo around the CHORDS of each measure, he sees CHORD TONES and a little non chords to create the tension to resolution we humans love. Now lets look at the Bass, go look at any piece of music, and I do mean any, you will find that each measure has notes that i guarantee will be almost completely CHORD TONES that match the chord above the measure. For example. you might see notes in the first measure of a song that is C, G, B and I guarantee you will see a C major or C Maj7 above the measure. Why? because they are the CHORD TONES. It would be a major coincidence that if people wrote bass lines bassed on scales that each measure would be filled with chord tones. I play bass and read music and move my hand around the CHORD TONE voicings and NOT locked into one position playing scales. A note like C is the root of a C chord but it is the 5th of an F chord. Scales are not going to take that into consideration. And finally, I usually get the scale people thinking when I say.... PLAY A BUNCH of F notes over a C major chord and see what happens. Or, play a series of D, F, A, notes over a C major chord. Theory teachers will teach that a C major scale is suppose to work for songs in the Key of C major. Here is what u will hear, the F note over a C chord which in THEORY is suppose to work but it CLASHES with the C chord because you hear a minor 2nd CLASH between the E of the C chord and the F note you are playing. The D, F, A notes over the C chord are going to sound AIRY and NOT grounded. Why? because the player is not understanding the CHORD TONES of the music which goes with the chords above each measure. Bass teachers have got to start teaching students these things and stop with all the scale non sense. And finally, if you dont believe me, type in YOUTUBE Carol Kaye interviews and u will come across the great Carol Kaye saying the exact same thing! Watch the entire video especially around the 1 minute mark onward. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9idtdWAAEA

This is how I play, and have been playing for almost 40 years. No one I've played with has ever bitched at me about my playing or told me I sucked. I will use non-chordal tones to connect my chordal tones, but they aren't necessarily in the song's key.

To be honest, I think many people on TalkBass think too much about scales and modes and stuff. For me, I don't have time to analyze every note I'm playing and give a theoretical explanation of every note I play. That would just get in the way of me having fun playing the song.

Sometimes I'll play something without any reason at all, but it will sound good. I guess that is just from years of experience.

Keep your bass playing solid with chordal tones, use chromatics or scale tones to connect notes in runs and stuff, but don't go crazy over thinking everything.

To be honest with you, I'd say that when I do play anything that is "scale like" it will be the major scale, minor scale, minor blues, diminished, or augmented. That's about it. If it sounds like I'm playing a mode, all I'm really doing is playing through a major scale, but using different notes in the scale as the root.

And I'm pretty well grounded in rock, country, jazz (old time standards), and worship type music.

Thinking about it too much ruins the freedom of playing.

That's my take on this subject. Like it or not. Believe it or not. But almost 40 years of playing my opinion should be good for something.