Scales

[mambo4]

How many scales do serious bassist learn?

Serious bassists learn enough theory, harmony, scales, and stylistic conventions to apply any of the12 notes as needed.

Im coming from a jazz guitar background, and on guitar there are many scale systems like caged, berkleey, 3nps etc(each of these systems containis 5+ different scales). Do such scale systems exist on bass?

Bassists tend to think harmonically rather than scalar after a certain point. 'Scale systems' you describe are just learning aids to memorize where the notes are. Its the first step in the journey. I know scales but I do not "play scales" - I support the harmony using a stylistically appropriate rhythm

 

[JonathanPDX]

Like I said, we will have to agree to disagree on this. Those are not strict rules, they are conventions that are convenient within the confines of the major keys - they don't work for the minor keys where letter names ARE used twice (for the 6th and 7th degrees) and accidentals ARE necessarily mixed, Maybe it would help to move from thinking of key signatures less as DEFINING the key and more as an aid to IDENTIFICATION of the key.
Perhaps a few sources will help:
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Every one of those examples is literally a scale, not a key. And the example that mixes accidentals specifically says it would make sense if we wrote minor keys this way, but we don't.

Chromatic is not a key, it's a scale. Harmonic Minor is a scale, not a key. A key follows specific rules, as I have listed multiple times. Music isn't only keys, but not every scale is a key.

 

[SteveCS]

Every one of those examples is literally a scale, not a key. And the example that mixes accidentals specifically says it would make sense if we wrote minor keys this way, but we don't.

Chromatic is not a key, it's a scale. Harmonic Minor is a scale, not a key. A key follows specific rules, as I have listed multiple times. Music isn't only keys, but not every scale is a key.

OK, we are clearly speaking different languages from different levels and different perspectives, I've made my case, presented my own evidence and backed it up with evidence from credible published sources so I'm happy to leave that here for others to consider and come to their own conclusions.

@bassbass167 : As you can see this stuff can appear quite involved, convoluted and difficult to navigate at first. Please accept apologies it you think your thread has become derailed...

 

[JonathanPDX]

OK, we are clearly speaking different languages from different levels and different perspectives, I've made my case, presented my own evidence and backed it up with evidence from credible published sources so I'm happy to leave that here for others to consider and come to their own conclusions.

@bassbass167 : As you can see this stuff can appear quite involved, convoluted and difficult to navigate at first. Please accept apologies it you think your thread has become derailed...

I'll defer to Victor Wooten on this one. He's been teaching this class for many years, all over the world.

 

[SteveCS]

I'll defer to Victor Wooten on this one. He's been teaching this class for many years, all over the world.

Please do. I know this might feel like a direct attack on a fundamental aspect of peoples' beliefs and understandings. Perhaps it is, but that is not my fault - the blame lies with incomplete (or unfinished?) education based on shallow and simplified information masquerading as the whole truth.

Here's a question - feel free to defer to VW is you want to: "In the key of A minor, is the dominant chord E7 diatonic or chromatic/borrowed/altered/etc? Give your reasoning."

 

[Shenron]

Hello. Im curious about scales on bass. How many scales do serious bassist learn? With scales I don't mean specific scales such as blues and such, but more bass technical scales. Im coming from a jazz guitar background, and on guitar there are many scale systems like caged, berkleey, 3nps etc(each of these systems containis 5+ different scales). Do such scale systems exist on bass? In theory every guitar scale works on bass. Or do you guys simply just use a few scales and move them around duo to bass isomorphic nature.

Are the scales on upright bass same as bass guitar?

I think all scale systems for guitar also work on bass because bass is a type of guitar

If anything, scale systems on a standard 4-string bass are obviously slightly easier due to the lack of that anomaly between 2nd and 3rd string on guitar i.e. all bass strings have the same 5 semitone difference.

On the other hand, 3nps may not be comfortable on bass lower frets, but that doesn't mean it can't be used.

 

[JonathanPDX]

Please do. I know this might feel like a direct attack on a fundamental aspect of peoples' beliefs and understandings. Perhaps it is, but that is not my fault - the blame lies with incomplete (or unfinished?) education based on shallow and simplified information masquerading as the whole truth.

Here's a question - feel free to defer to VW is you want to: "In the key of A minor, is the dominant chord E7 diatonic or chromatic/borrowed/altered/etc? Give your reasoning."

Well that's not a hard one to answer. You have a key signature with no accidentals, and when that E chord comes along D is #. Just because there's a chord that shifts to a different scale/mode does not change the way the key is written on the staff. If you have one # it would be on F, putting you in the key of G major / E minor. There is no key that has only one accidental which is D#. You can have a scale, a chord, a song, a solo, or a melody with that note just fine. It's just not a key.

 

[SteveCS]

...
and when that E chord comes along D is #.
...
Just because there's a chord that shifts to a different scale/mode
...

If you consider the E7 as being from a different scale/mode then we have found the disconnect.. Incidentally, it's G#, not D#.

 

[JonathanPDX]

If you are referring to the E7 as being from a different scale/mode then we have found the disconnect...

E7 is not a diatonic chord. It's a secondary dominant. Again, you can have a harmonic minor scale, which is what you are trying to create here, but Harmonic Minor is not a key. It's a scale. You cannot spell it on the staff. You cannot create harmonic minor with any combination of accidentals that follow the rules of how keys are written. Accidentals follow a pattern, you cannot just throw them wherever you want and declare it a key.

It's kind of surprising you claim to be an educated reader but don't understand how key signatures are written or the rules behind them.

If you don't like the rules either get a time machine and go talk to the guys who wrote them, or go find Victor and tell him how wrong he is. But until you do one of those things I'm going to take my cues on reading the staff from the guy who was reading Patitucci's lines in Chick Corea's band.

 

[SteveCS]

...
Accidentals follow a pattern, you cannot just throw them wherever you want and declare it a key.

It's kind of surprising you claim to be an educated reader but don't understand how key signatures are written or the rules behind them.
...

Whatever gave you that impression - that pattern and the conventions are day 1 of Theory 101.

...

If you don't like the rules either get a time machine and go talk to the guys who wrote them,
...

There is no need to get personal here - we are dealing with objective truths. It seems to me you are the one wedded to 'rules' from the major system and trying to shoehorn them into the minor domain. Newsflash - Minor is Not Major with a different Tonic, and is NOT the Aeolian mode.

...
E7 is not a diatonic chord.
...

Of course it is, for the simple reason that it is built from notes that are diatonic in the minor key. It really is that simple. No need for secondary dominants or any other concepts that cloud the water. It's just V7 - no more and no less. If anything in the minor key could be used as obvious Secondary Dominants you have the VII7 or the IV7 (both diatonic) because they offer easy-access exits to other keys (the definition/purpose of secondary dominant is to resolve to a place other than the tonic).

Just to be clear, in the minor key all 9 notes are considered diatonic. The fact that they can't be represented in the key signature is unfortunate, but there it is and here they are:

 

[mambo4]

@SteveCS is writing about keys as used
@JonathanPDX is writing about keys as written
seems to me anyhow

The idea that all harmonization of a minor scale (natural/harmonic/melodic) 'count' as diatonic
was a new concept to me when @SteveCS first brought it to my attention.
but it does seem backed up by the academic literature.

Seemed odd to me at first, But thinking that way does have utility
situationally, thinking keys== key signatures can also have utility

I switch perspectives as needed and don't fret

Dancing about architecture and all that...

 

[TroyK]

So, the answer to @bassbass167 is "I don't know, how deep do you want to go?"

These systems, including things like CAGED, are to help us organize our personal understanding of music. How much do you need to play it? Pick any genre and pick apart the understanding and approach of notable players and I think it would go about like this conversation.

I've met some really good (by my standards) classically trained musicians who don't understand any of this, but they can sight read anything.

I am a big proponent of understanding music, rather than just learning songs, but we all push to the point where it feels like whatever way it is organized in our brains supports our needs as players. It's nice when we find some music or play with some musicians who make that feel insufficient and prompts us to go deeper.

I think the other value of music theory and notation, is that it helps us communicate with musicians we play with. But, as you can see, that can work for or against us.

Original question: know and practice your scales. Depending on your genre and ambition there will probably be a hieracy to them, but more is better because you will hear more things, have more ideas, and it's a great way to practice your instrument.

 

[ryco]

Just to throw something out there: learning arpeggios, at least R-3-5-7, provides a little more bang for your bass playing buck. Later add 9, 11, and 13 (aka "extensions) as well and you have all of the same notes as running scales.
Arpeggios are the same notes as scales, only played in thirds instead of consecutive seconds. This gives you the outlining chord tones suited to outlining chord progression harmony.

Learn scales as well as they can be used as runs to connect chord tones to each other.
Accidentals and chromatics add the spice.

 

[TroyK]

Arpeggios are super-valuable, especially for bass, but how would you know what the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th are if you didn't know the scale?

 

[ryco]

Arpeggios are super-valuable, especially for bass, but how would you know what the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th are if you didn't know the scale?

Point taken! Been at it so long just comes out.

Yeah - run scales. Run all of them. Diantonic Majors, minors, Dominants in all keys. Then start playing them as arpeggios. These would probably be the "important technical bass scales" the OP may be talking about --- but they aren't just "bass scales", they are the fundamentals to any instrument.
Run through all of the mode scales in all keys. (same same)
Then start running altered - hell, anything you can think of, and also play them as arpeggios at the same time. They are all useful to get in the ear and under one's fingers.

As long as one is doing all this might as well play as intervals,too = in thirds, fourths, fifths, sisxths, sevenths.

 

[TroyK]

Agree about the intervals too. Very good ear and mapping training.

 

[Prodigus Filius]

Scales are the musical alphabet from which you make musical 'words'. By all means focus on the most used ones in the genre(s) of music you like. It would be futile focusing on melodic minor if your genre was hard rock. No, you'd focus on knowing the pentatonic minor scale. When someone wants to engage in a conversation, you don't recite the alphabet to them. It doesn't carry meaning, without the context of word construction, phrasing etc etc.

 

[mambo4]

learning arpeggios, at least R-3-5-7, provides a little more bang for your bass playing buck.

Then start playing them as arpeggios. These would probably be the "important technical bass scales" the OP may be talking about

Then start playing them as arpeggios. These would probably be the "important technical bass scales" the OP may be talking about --- but they aren't just "bass scales", they are the fundamentals to any instrument.

all of this

The OP carries the odd implication that scales are somehow unique on different instruments.
Execution is different, perhaps -but the music (scales) is transcendent to the instrument

Maybe what OP seeks is bass specific scale exercises to practice?
In which case I guess arpeggios is solid choice.

 

[the_Ryan]

Like I said, we will have to agree to disagree on this. Those are not strict rules, they are conventions that are convenient within the confines of the major keys - they don't work for the minor keys where letter names ARE used twice (for the 6th and 7th degrees) and accidentals ARE necessarily mixed, Maybe it would help to move from thinking of key signatures less as DEFINING the key and more as an aid to IDENTIFICATION of the key.
Perhaps a few sources will help:
View attachment 6976789
View attachment 6976787

View attachment 6976795
View attachment 6976794

Just to go further down this tangent, in music school I was taught that harmonic minor is sort of the default scale for minor keys because a V > i resolution is stronger than v > i due to the half step movement from scale degree 7 to 1, but when constructing melodies in a minor key that augmented 2nd between scale degrees 6 and 7 is kinda funky, so if you want to emphasize 7 > 1 movement in a melody you raise the sixth, and if you want to emphasize 6 > 5 you lower the seventh.

This kind of only pertains to classical music pre-1900-ish and non-modal jazz, in almost all pop genres and a lot of western folk traditions, natural minor is used pretty freely.

 

[SteveCS]

Just to go further down this tangent, in music school I was taught that harmonic minor is sort of the default scale for minor keys because a V > i resolution is stronger than v > i due to the half step movement from scale degree 7 to 1, but when constructing melodies in a minor key that augmented 2nd between scale degrees 6 and 7 is kinda funky, so if you want to emphasize 7 > 1 movement in a melody you raise the sixth, and if you want to emphasize 6 > 5 you lower the seventh.

This kind of only pertains to classical music pre-1900-ish and non-modal jazz, in almost all pop genres and a lot of western folk traditions, natural minor is used pretty freely.

Sounds about right from what I remember being taught almost 40 years ago, although I'm not sure I totally accept that the ideas ever became obsolete - you still hear V-i all over the place, as well as liberal use of all available notes in melodies, which I think further confirms the diatonic nature of all 3 scales within the minor key (and that got me into a bit of hot water back up the thread).

It is true that the historical 'rule-book' for melody writing has been extended and expanded, but that is no bad thing in my mind. The new thinking doesn't (or at least it shouldn't) cancel the old. Those concepts and ideas still work, it's just that there are new ones to consider. One day these new ideas will be old hat and a whole new bunch of folks that aren't yet born will be having this exact conversation all over again against the background of an even thicker 'rule-book'.