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Relearn All Scales & Patterns For BEAD ?

M

mentalpatient

Inactive
Jun 23, 2009
265
2
mental institutionzs
#1
Following the advise of musicians when I started bass I purchased a 4 string EADG. When I went to 5 string they said just use the EADG strings as before and hit the Low B for your own stuff.

Ok, all good so far, practicing scales and patterns on the 5 string as per EADG.

My confusion started when I decided to go with BEAD all the time. Do I have to transpose all scales and patterns to BEAD ?
That's a lot to lean I think, my brain is not growing any new cells, doubt if I can switch between the two tuning easily. It's a much bigger change than drop D.

Am I going about this in the wrong way as all instructional material I have seen is EADG ?

I would have thought all scales and patterns would have been rewritten by now considering the popularity of the 5 string, but then everything would sound way huge, perhaps too huge for some people on the larger strings, and what about the G ?

I don't really need the G string but as far as learning and theory goes I feel I would be missing out somehow or making it difficult for myself sticking to the BEAD tuning alone.

I'd like to know which way to go before I commit to large scale re learning.
 
#3
Scales & Patterns don't change....

BEAD is a mnemonic device that makes use of the guitar's tuning in fourths for ... It is based on the circle of fifths. For those of you who are new to the idea of .... G (7th fret on B string) adjust for fourths..F# ...

5ths tuning is the same except to the 5ths interval. ... 4ths is tuning to a straight 4th interval, like a Bass -- EADG. or BEAD, Or EADGC.

Notes and tips on tuning in fourths from jazz guitarist Justin Perdue. ... a diatonic scale, by simply stacking intervals of fourths and flatted fifths. ... B-E-A-D C-F-B-E. Note that these chords are all just stacked fourths
 
#4
RCCollins said:
the scales and patterns don't change - they just move up a string
Click to expand...

That's what I thought based on hearing that drop D 1/2 Step preserves fingering. So I took it further and went BEAD.

So I tell my bass instructor I'll be going BEAD and we start off playing scales from the Low B and the pattern is different. I go to a scale generator on the net and it's different as well.

We were working it out by ear, going by intervals and not fret spacing.
 
#5
mentalpatient said:
My confusion started when I decided to go with BEAD all the time. Do I have to transpose all scales and patterns to BEAD ?
That's a lot to lean I think, my brain is not growing any new cells, doubt if I can switch between the two tuning easily. It's a much bigger change than drop D.
Click to expand...

Actually, it's a much smaller change than drop D. With both BEAD and EADG, the invterval between each string is a fourth. Since the intervals between each string are the same, with either tuning, the patterns and intervals with a BEAD tuning are the same as with a EADG tuning, they're just shifted to a different place on the neck.

For example, if you are in EADG tuning and play an F, the octave of that F will always be two strings up and two frets up from the root. It doesn't matter whether you play the F on the 1st fret of the E string, the sixth fret of the B string, the 8th fret of the A string, the octave will always be in the same place relative to the root.

Likewise, in either BEAD tuning or EADG tuning, a fifth is always 1 string up and 2 frets up from the root.

Similarly, scale patterns will be the same in BEAD tuning as in EADG tuning. For example, the scale pattern for a one octave D scale starting on the 5th fret of the A string in EADG tuning is exactly the same as the scale pattern for the one octave D scale starting on the 3rd fret of the B string in BEAD tuning.

The same is not true if you use a drop tuning. For example, if you are using a drop D tuning, DADG, there is a fifth between the low D string and the A string, and a fourth between every other string. Thus, to play any particular interval on the low D string and A strings, you would need to use a different fingering than to play that same interval on the higher D string and G string.
 
#6
mentalpatient said:
That's what I thought based on hearing that drop D 1/2 Step preserves fingering. So I took it further and went BEAD.

So I tell my bass instructor I'll be going BEAD and we start off playing scales from the Low B and the pattern is different. I go to a scale generator on the net and it's different as well.

We were working it out by ear, going by intervals and not fret spacing.
Click to expand...

For a holistic musical understanding of the scale this is a good idea. For instance if you are going to be playing other instruments, this is a very useful approach. But the bass is a pattern based instrument, like a grid. The most efficiant way to learn the scales is pattern (fret spacing) based.
A Gmajor Scale PATTERN on a eadg bass is exactly the same as on a BEADG bass. They just start on different frets. There will always be a five fret difference....so In the case off G major... starts on third fret in eadg, 8th fret of Bead. same scale, same pattern, different frets..
Hope this helps.
 
#7
It depends on how you wish to learn scales. There are at least three different methods.

1 The box method - a standard fingering for the major scale starting with the middle finger (1 = middle 2 = pinky, 2 is index one string up etc.) plus adaptions for minor scales, modes, chromatic scale etc.; start on different intervals.
2 The 3-notes-per string method: start on the lowest string, index finger for the tonica, 2nd and 3rd on the same string, 4th-5th-6th one string up, 7th-8th one string up, then back to 2nd on lowest string with index, 3rd-4th also on lowest string, 5th-6th-7th one string up, 8th-9th on string up, 3rd with index on lowest string etc.etc.
3. Start on the lowest string open (B in your case) and play different scales that have a B somewhere (about half of all existing scales).

IME you need to study all three of them, but in the above order of difficulty. 1 covers the basics, 2 is advanced and 3 is to test if you really know the stuff.
 
#8
Perhaps my terminology is incorrect, By "Drop D 1/2 step" I am referring to dropping them all to Eb-Ab-Db-Gb as opposed to "Drop D" DADG.

So I'll be going to my instructor asking why all the fret spacing changes, again. Which I did ask and the "interval" concept, the space between the note pitch and not the fret spacing was explained.

So he is incorrect or is he explaining some other musical concept ?

Major Scales, pretty simple, play it on a standard 4 string EADG bass. Then pick up a BEAD bass, use the same fret positions & strings, all good, as if I was using the same instrument, that's what I thought.

So I do not do what he instructs, his teaching is incorrect ?
 
#12
Samsound said:
Is it possible y'all were working with HIS bass tuned AEAD, or Ab-Eb-Ab-Db, or Db-Ab-Db-Gb? Maybe you confused him by use if the word Drop?
Click to expand...

I did not mention the drop word to him, I mention it here to explain my train of thought/thinking.

I explained to him that my other bass is a factory tuned BEAD 4 string and that BEAD is where I want to be. He then did some tuning by ear on his bass to the BEAD strings on my 5 string. Now that you mention it, there could have been some tuning problems.
 
#18
RCCollins said:
the scales and patterns don't change - they just move up a string
Click to expand...

+1

I frankly can't understand what the misunderstanding's about. The intervals between the strings are still all-fourths. Just that if you played a certain pattern on the bottom 3 strings for, say, the G major scale, if you now play the same pattern on the same strings, it's the D major scale, i.e. a fourth down.
 
#19
champbassist said:
+1

I frankly can't understand what the misunderstanding's about. The intervals between the strings are still all-fourths. Just that if you played a certain pattern on the bottom 3 strings for, say, the G major scale, if you now play the same pattern on the same strings, it's the D major scale, i.e. a fourth down.
Click to expand...

Yeah it isn't complicated at all. I learn on a 5 strings even if everything that my teacher gave me was for a 4 strings bass. I just expend everything to the B strings and now on the C strings as well.

You know how to play a major scale ? well it is exacly the same thing. Instead of a low G it is now a low D.
 

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