[newbie]What is the purpose of learning scale?

[biscuitz]

hi every TBers.

I'm a bass guitar newbie for a few months with no prior musical experience. As I start out learning bass from the internet, books, DVDs and teachers, I can see/read/hear from everybody that practising scale is important. From my understanding, scale is just a set of notes of particular intervals. As a newbie plays root note often, I knew that if I'm playing a song in G key, I need to be familiar with the G scale notes positions on the fretboard so that i know where to play the root notes. But other this, how is practicing scale gonna help? Not to mention that there are modes of a scale to practice, as suggested by many people...

 

[ddnidd1]

An actual bass line is more than just the root notes. Having some knowledge of scales and more importantly the structure of chords is critical to developing bass lines that are harmonically in sync with, for instance, the guitar and vocal parts.

Playing just root notes isn't really what's commonly thought of as a bass line.

 

[MalcolmAmos]

Why scales? Good question. I know of no musical instrument that does not start you out running your scales. Why? Well the major scale is the building block of everything we do musically in the Western part of the World. This link has several posts that go into detail. http://www.talkbass.com/threads/how-to-get-started.1098564/ spend some time here and then ask specific questions. Someone will answer your questions.

OK that's great, but, why do scales? So your fingers know where the notes are and your ears get to recognizing the sound of good notes from bad notes.

Dirt simple logic; the scale notes are used when playing the melody. The chord tones (notes of the chord) are used for the harmony (chords) that are played under the melody. When the melody line and the chord line share like notes we get harmonization. So it kinda helps if you know what notes need to be shared.

Long story very short.

• The C major chord is made of the C, E & G scale notes. Or the 1, 3 & 5 scale degrees of the C major scale.
• The Dm chord is made of the D, F & A scale notes. Or the 1, b3 & 5 scale degrees of the D major scale.
• What chord would you put under the melody if the melody notes revolved around the B, A & F notes? Yea, a handy dandy scale chart would come in handy.

With out some knowledge of what notes are in a scale we keep running into store walls and things always turn to Jell-O.

That's why we need to start with scales. Yes when playing bass 90% of what we do will be playing chord tone notes, but, chords are made from scale --- so without scales none of this happens.

Course if you are playing by rote from sheet music your song writer has figured all this out for you and all you have to do is play what is on the sheet music. I like to know why I'm doing something, if that is not important to you, be happy that songwriters publish sheet music.

You mentioned modes - modes are the moods of a scale. If you do not understand why scales no point in getting into modes. Learn why scales first - then get into modes later.

Good luck.

 

[biscuitz]

thanks for ddnidd1 and MalcolmAmos for your answers to my question. And I understand that bassline is definitely not just playing root notes...and yes i also know that chords are build from scales...I'm just curious about how practising scale can bring me from playing root notes to a real bassline

 

[MalcolmAmos]

thanks for ddnidd1 and MalcolmAmos for your answers to my question. And I understand that bassline is definitely not just playing root notes...and yes i also know that chords are build from scales...I'm just curious about how practising scale can bring me from playing root notes to a real bassline

What do real bass lines have in them? Notes of the scale/key this song is using. The following will use A, B, C's and 1, 2, 3's. The 1, 2, 3's are generic and can be use with any scale or chord.

Scales have the following notes in them:

• Major Scale = R-2-3-4-5-6-7 Home base
• Major Pentatonic = R-2-3-5-6 Leave out the 4 & 7
• Natural Minor Scale = R-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7 Major scale with the 3, 6 & 7 flatted.
• Minor Pentatonic = R-b3-4-5-b7 Leave out the 2 & 6.
• Blues = R-b3-4-b5-5-b7 Minor pentatonic with the blue note b5 added.
• Harmonic Minor Scale = R-2-b3-4-5-b6-7 Natural minor with a natural 7.
• Melodic Minor Scale = R-2-b3-4-5-6-7 Major scale with a b3.

Let's use the major scale box as a Rosetta stone to help us know what scale notes to use for what we want to play. OK, but, first wouldn't it be a good idea to get our fingers around where those notes are on the fretboard? I think so.

Find a C note put the following box's R on that C note and play the spelling for what you want. We want a C major Pentatonic so it's spelling is R-2-3-5-6. Use the C at the 4th string 8th fret. The F chord is coming up and I want to play the F major pentatonic scale over it. There is an F note right above that C note, move your box up so the R is over the F and play the R-2-3-5-6 notes found in the box. If necessary read that again, I've put a fretboard chart and the major scale box below.

Bass Patterns based upon the Major Scale box.

Major Scale Box.

G|---2---|-------|---3---|---4---| 1st string
D|---6---|-------|---7---|---8---|
A|---3---|---4---|-------|---5---|
E|-------|---R---|-------|---2---|4th string
Want to play the G major scale - place the box's R note on a G note on your fretboard and then play the spelling for the scale you want. G major the spelling is R-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. If you wanted the G natural minor scale place the box's R on that same G note and the spelling for the Natural minor scale is R-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7.

OK practicing my scales helps my fingers know where these notes are on my fretboard.
Link Removed

Say I want to play a bass line under a Cmaj7 chord. What are the notes in a Cmaj7 chord? The R-3-5-7 notes of the C major scale. If I do not know where to find that C major scale good luck with finding the notes of the Cmaj7 chord.

Basic Chords

• Major Triad = R-3-5
• Minor Triad = R-b3-5
• Diminished Chord = R-b3-b5

7th Chords

• Maj7 = R-3-5-7
• Minor 7 = R-b3-5-b7
• Dominant 7 = R-3-5-b7
• ½ diminished = R-b3-b5-b7
• Full diminished = R-b3-b5-bb7

See a chord and play it's chord tones. As every key will have three major, three minor and one diminished chord it's a good idea to get your major, minor and diminished bass line chord tones into muscle memory so when you see a chord your fingers just know what will work. Now the song may only give you enough room for the root, or root five - adapt and get as many chord tones into your bass line as needed. Root on 1 and a steady groove from the other chord tones plus something to call attention to the chord change is what we do.


Generic Notes - for your bass line.

• The root, five and eight are generic and fit most any chord. Remember the diminished has a flatted 5.
• The 3 is generic to all major chords. So R-3-5-3 will fit under any major chord.
• The b3 is generic to all minor chords. And R-b3-5-8 will fit under any minor chord. Why the 8? Well the 8 is just another root in the next octave.
• The 7 is generic to all maj7 chords. Yep, R-3-5-7 fits nicely.
• The b7 is generic to all dominant seventh and minor seventh chords. G7 = R-3-5-b7 or Gm7 = R-b3-5-b7.
• The 6 is neutral and adds color, help yourself to 6's. Love the sound of R-3-5-6 with a major chord.
• The 2 and 4 make good passing notes. Don't linger on them or stop on them, keep them passing.
• In making your bass line help yourself to those notes, just use them correctly.
• Roots, fives, eights and the correct 3 & 7 will play a lot of bass.

These two videos should help pull all of this into focus.

If you know where the scale notes are located on your fretboard you can pick and choose the ones you want for your bass line.

OK hang on:

From any note where is it's 2? Same string up two frets.
From any note where is it's 3? Up a string and back one fret.
From any note where is it's 4? Up a string same fret.
From any note where is it's 5? Up two strings and up two frets, or down a string same fret.
From any note where is it's 6? Up two strings and back one fret. Over the 3.
From any note where is it's 7? Up two strings and over one fret.
From any note where is it's 8? Up two strings and over two frets, over the 5.

So you have a Cmaj7 chord coming up. Find a C note that's your R, you now need the 3, it is found up a string and back one fret. The 5 is next, where is the 5 located from your C root note? Up a string and over two frets. OK your last note needed will be the major 7, where is the 7 located from the root C? How about up two strings and over one fret. Practice that on the chord spellings I gave you, i.e. Cm7 chord's spelling is R-b3-5-b7, get that into muscle memory. Your bass line need not always start on the root. Using inversions you have all kinds of choices for a bass line. For example:

R-3-5-7
3-5-7-R
5-7-R-3
7-R-3-5
​

I normally do roots or R-5 and if more is needed I insert an 8. R-5-8-5. I also like a generic R-3-5-3 for major chords or R-b3-5-b3 for minor chords. The groove comes easy if I keep it simple.

That's how you fill your bass lines with more than just roots. I've given you enough to keep you busy for a month of steady practice. Get in the shed.

 

[Johnny Crab]

Scott's pretty good at focus.

 

[bassbully]

MalcolmAmos is IMO the best at explaining the basics and best way to approach the Bass on TB.
He takes allot of time to teach and breaks down his lessons to make them easy to underatand Kudo's sir!

To the OP print out his lessons and learn them. You will quickly see what scales mean to you as a bass player.

 

[Mushroo]

Just practicing boring scales over and over again won't particularly help you become a better musician. You need to make it fun and really understand how the scale works!

Here is an excellent exercise for getting the sound of the major scale into your head. Just sing along and I think you will begin to understand the "purpose" or "why" to learning scales!



Now that you have internalized the sound of the musical scale, try figuring out by ear some famous melodies like: your national anthem, holiday songs, nursery rhymes, TV theme songs, etc.

 

[mambo4]

"The practice of scales enables one to solve a greater number of technical problems in a shorter time than any other exercise."
-Andrés Segovia (Classical Guitar Maestro)

Also : the major scale is the central concept in western music.
Every interval, scale, chord, or mode - Everything is defined in terms of how in relates to the major scale.
If there is any scale worth knowing inside and out, worth practicing in endless varieties of ways, it is that scale.

Also Also: Learn Harmony before wasting time with Modes. Modes are easily diagramed but difficult to apply, chords and major scale harmony are harder to learn but 1000x more useful

 

[Mushroo]

ALSO:

Music is all about the progression of tension vs. release, consonance vs. dissonance, white keys vs black keys, "in" vs "out".

How can you tell whether something is "out" until you've learned what is "in"?

The major scale is the "vanilla" you need to learn first, so that you understand what is "altered" or different about every other scale in relation...

 

[mikefromchurch]

If, to say the same thing a bit simpler, I played guitar before bass, and knew scales. I play 3 sundays a month at our church, with the 3rd chair guitarist filling in for me once a month (who doesn't know scales). We play a song that is F-G-Bb-F with an oddball Eb5 turn before the chorus. I play the Eb D string 1st fret, while the guitarist is so used to running up to A string 6th fret to catch the power chord, that's how he plays the song on bass. This is just one of many examples of how I see him playing all over the neck (mind you, only playing whole or quarter roots) where I can play actual bass lines without moving position.

 

[Mushroo]

If, to say the same thing a bit simpler, I played guitar before bass, and knew scales. I play 3 sundays a month at our church, with the 3rd chair guitarist filling in for me once a month (who doesn't know scales). We play a song that is F-G-Bb-F with an oddball Eb5 turn before the chorus. I play the Eb D string 1st fret, while the guitarist is so used to running up to A string 6th fret to catch the power chord, that's how he plays the song on bass. This is just one of many examples of how I see him playing all over the neck (mind you, only playing whole or quarter roots) where I can play actual bass lines without moving position.

That is an interesting point, Mike...

Moral of the story, it's important to distinguish between a scale and a fingering for playing that scale.

The scale is an abstract musical construction. Any given scale (Eb Major for example) is an abstract musical construction that is the same notes on every instrument (with the confusing exception of "transposing instruments" like saxophone, but let's ignore that for now).

But for any given scale, there are multiple fingerings as performance options on the bass. For example, you can play that Eb Major scale starting at the 1st fret of the D string, or the 6th fret of the A string, or the 11th fret of the E string, and so forth.

Ideally to be good musicians we should learn both the abstract theoretical construction of scales as well as all the different fingerings used to perform these scales on the bass. Only learning one or the other side of the coin will not give you the full picture to be a complete musician. Beware the trap of simply memorizing fingering patterns/shapes without also learning the construction and sound of the scale. Only then can we truly say we "know our scales"!

A really excellent exercise for understanding how scales are put together is to practice them all the way up and down on each single string of the bass. So for example, play every note of the C scale you can find all the way up and down the E string, then repeat for the A, D, and G strings. Then work around the circle of 5ths repeating the exercise for each of the 12 keys. I like this exercise because moving up and down on the same string really illustrates the pattern of whole steps (2 frets) and half steps (1 fret) that gives the scale its unique sound and formula.

 

[jthisdell]

I don't think I can add much except that if you learn all your scales and understand which chords in a key will be maj and which min then your fingers will know where to go.

 

[PullThePlug]

Why scales? Good question. I know of no musical instrument that does not start you out running your scales. Why? Well the major scale is the building block of everything we do musically in the Western part of the World. This link has several posts that go into detail. http://www.talkbass.com/threads/how-to-get-started.1098564/ spend some time here and then ask specific questions. Someone will answer your questions.

OK that's great, but, why do scales? So your fingers know where the notes are and your ears get to recognizing the sound of good notes from bad notes.

Dirt simple logic; the scale notes are used when playing the melody. The chord tones (notes of the chord) are used for the harmony (chords) that are played under the melody. When the melody line and the chord line share like notes we get harmonization. So it kinda helps if you know what notes need to be shared.

Long story very short.

• The C major chord is made of the C, E & G scale notes. Or the 1, 3 & 5 scale degrees of the C major scale.
• The Dm chord is made of the D, F & A scale notes. Or the 1, b3 & 5 scale degrees of the D major scale.
• What chord would you put under the melody if the melody notes revolved around the B, A & F notes? Yea, a handy dandy scale chart would come in handy.

With out some knowledge of what notes are in a scale we keep running into store walls and things always turn to Jell-O.

That's why we need to start with scales. Yes when playing bass 90% of what we do will be playing chord tone notes, but, chords are made from scale --- so without scales none of this happens.

Course if you are playing by rote from sheet music your song writer has figured all this out for you and all you have to do is play what is on the sheet music. I like to know why I'm doing something, if that is not important to you, be happy that songwriters publish sheet music.

You mentioned modes - modes are the moods of a scale. If you do not understand why scales no point in getting into modes. Learn why scales first - then get into modes later.

Good luck.

Not to stray from the topic, but I love your posts - they're very straightforward and informative. I suggest the OP read up on what Malcolm has to share on this thread as well as others regarding theory. I know your posts have helped me!

To the OP: It's imperative to learn the major scale first. You'll be able to figure out other scales (Minor, Diminished, Melodic Minor, etc) one you have the major scale under your belt. Just like anything else you do in life, practice makes perfect.

 

[Wooly John]

I practice scales to build muscle memory of the positions of related notes and for ear training of note position and tone.
I don't know the notes of every scale, but I know the number positions, so I know if when I'm playing a R-3-5-6-b7 pattern.
The carol Joy to the World is a descending C scale - I usually play that as the first part of my warm-up - then I play Mama's Little Baby Loves Shortnin' Bread (which uses all the scale except the 7, which I add as a passing note so I get to play the whole scale).
And I always try to play scales in time and with a groove, not just as a series of notes - because bass is as much about the groove as the notes, right?

 

[Big Brother]

Scales are just a long running inside joke for music teachers. Like snipe hunts. Just play the notes that you feel, man. If your bandmates are as musically intellectual as they claim, they can play around your unshackled awesomeness.

-with regards
That Awful Musician Next Door

 

[hrodbert696]

Many good answers so far. Just to say how I think of it, as a bassist, you're usually going to be in one of two positions; either you're covering a bass line created by someone else, or you're composing a bass line for original songs.

If you're covering a tune, you may or may not have a piece of sheet music to read; for most popular music, that's not common. You might use a TAB, but they can be unreliable, and reduce you to being a "tab monkey." So you're often figuring out a line by ear or from a chord chart. If you know your scales, learning a part by ear is much faster and more accurate, because you immediately know which notes the original bassist must have built his line out of. Without knowing your scales, you're in for a lot of wasted time and frustration trying to find each note. Also, in a lot of cover band situations, you may NOT want to recreate the original bass part exactly. For instance, you might be in a power trio covering a tune that originally had rhythm guitar and keys. You and your guitarist between you will need to fill the empty space left by the instruments you don't have. Knowing the scales gives you a sense of what notes to fill with.

If you're creating original music, it's a similar situation. The scales tell you what notes will help create pleasing bass lines and which will be dissonant. If you WANT something to sound unusual or dissonant, the scales tell you that too. They help you zero in on the note selection that will get you where you want to go.