Very elementary question re: scales

[BadSanta1281]

I kind of feel like a light bulb just lit up over my head.

The amount of charitable help you all give us newbies is pretty incredible.

 

[BakerStreetMuse]

i'm going to multiquote and answer a couple of posts at a time so I don't have multiple posts in a row.

am a little different where I dont really practice shapes but in notes.

The benefit of getting to know the notes is that it will give you millions of options to approach to the next note/chord in bassline construction. It is a good thing to do to familiarise shapes as it aids a lot of people in playing but dont get bogged down by any shapes. All the best!

Thank you for the good wishes!
Good to know about knowing the shapes vs the notes. I had a couple of minor "lightbulb moments" in the past week: for example, having to write out the major vs minor triads from various root notes and realizing the only difference was the flattened third in the minor. (Made my homework super easy, haha.)

Well it can physically hurt you if you're constantly stretching beyond what is comfortable. Of course there will be some discomfort just because it's all pretty new to you, but don't persist with any given pattern if it is painful.

I find the wider fretting-hand stretch required for the first pattern uncomfortable on the bass, at least on the lower frets, though I guess it's fine starting up at the 8th fret for C major. I do happily use it anywhere on the neck when playing guitar rather than bass.

Having said that, wider stretches are easier with good hand position (thumb behind the neck, not wrapped around the top, etc.), and keeping youry hand relaxed and moving it side to side a little helps you reach the notes more easily than keeping your hand fixed and trying to do it just by stretching fingers.

Scales are good for developing dexterity in both hands, and for learning where the notes are on the neck and which notes belong to different keys, but in the context of a song you're not likely to need to play the full scale straight up and down, and you can make use of slides to get to the required notes, you don't have to stay locked into any particular position or pattern.

Ha, yes, very good point! I should have taken better care in my wording but I'm so you brought it up. It absolutely CAN hurt.

In my practicing, I'm definitely not trying to play through my pain or anything; I'd sooner move my whole hand than try to force a stretch and hurt myself. I know I still have some stretching range to gain because I've never had to use my hands like this in my life; however, I'm definitely not forcing my fingers to stretch to an impossible and unsustainable level due to physical limitations (i.e., hand size). Good tips, thanks!

 

[SteveCS]

...Then you will never, ever have to practice scales again in your life...

well maybe. It's worth keeping sight of why learning scales goes beyond the notes. Simple exercises based on them make good practice tools for things like dynamics and articulations...

 

[dtsamples]

Patterns are all well and good, but as you have discovered for yourself there are many options. IME it is better not to get locked in to any one or other, but learn to stitch segments of them all together by shifting. Here is an example of ONE possibility, with suggested fingering, that extends your scale to 2 full octaves and covers four regions of the fingerboard. Red arrows indicate position shifts...
View attachment 3376075
Try playing around the same thing with different fingering and shifting positions...
View attachment 3376060
Work out for yourself where the shifts might be on the way back down...

Just to build on this, which is a very good way of thinking about scales in relationship to the neck of the bass, if you instead play 4 notes per string (ie, in the diagram, play the G on the 5th fret of the D string, first finger slide to the A, and then again play the D on the 7th fret of the G string, then first finger slide to the E), you have a nice, comfortable, and pretty clearly visualizable 1/1-3-4, 1/1-3-4, 1/1-2-4 pattern.

Nevertheless, the point here that shifting as a way of navigating more of the neck during playing rather than staying fixed in one position is a very valuable habit.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Perhaps this free site may be of help to someone.
Link Removed

 

[tjh]

Never try to "stretch as much as physically possible"! That's how you can hurt your hand. Nobody is saying "keep your fingers locked in these positions, even when they aren't being used." Rather, you should shift your entire hand to reach far-away notes. Your hand should always be in the most comfortable and best sounding position for the note you are actually currently playing, not some hypothetical distant notes that you aren't playing. ...

This is a good point that Mushroo brings up … doing things repetitively as we do, anything that brings discomfort may soon bring injury … stay relaxed with your body as you play, especially the hands, but also in your arms and shoulders, or you will find yourself tensing for long periods of time while practicing …

A big thing to consider also is WHERE you are on the neck … when I was a young pup with these platypus hands I could play one-finger-per-fret like nothing with very little hand movement … now in my mid 60's, to play in the 'first position' on the neck and even up a bit, I will use middle finger root, pointer Major 3rd, middle again on the 4th, and then slide entire hand and hit the 5th with pinky and ring together usually … arthritis, injury, age, etc. can cause you to adapt … so lots of times, if the music I am playing will allow it, I will just move up the neck and play narrower frets where I am not moving as much … now a days I pretty much call mid neck my home with the left hand … easier on shoulder and elbow as well …

My last paragraph brings another thing to mind … when learning scales and even some songs, I work with 'patterns' and generally avoid using open strings if it doesn't hurt the musical piece … that way, when keys change/etc, you just move your pattern and don't need to re-invent the whole thing … if you ever play Worship music in a church regularly, you are always changing keys depending who is singing, that forced me to re-think a lot of the way I play things … just an afterthought

 

[bholder]

In addition to all the excellent advice above, here are 3 additional suggestions for fun ways to practice scales:

1. Play the scale on 1 string. For example, play the C Major scale using only your E string. Then do it again on the A, D, and G strings.
2. Play the scale as far up and down as you can, using only "1st position" (frets 1-4 and the open strings). For example, practice the C Major scale starting from the open low E and going up to B at the 4th fret of the G string. Or if you are practicing the Eb Major scale, start from low F at the 1st fret (because open E wouldn't fit the scale) and go up to Bb on the G string.
3. As exercise 2, except don't stop on the 4th fret, go as high as you can. For example, practice the C Major scale starting from open low E, and go all the way up to D at the 20th fret of the G string.

Now for the good news: There are only 12 major scales and 12 minor scales. So if you learn just 7 notes per day, you can learn all 24 scales in less than a month. You can learn 7 notes a day, right? If you can keep up that pace, then a month from now, you will be able to play songs in any of the 24 keys. Then you will never, ever have to practice scales again in your life, and you can focus your practice time on fun things, like learning your favorite songs or rehearsing for your upcoming gig.

(Footnote that it's actually more like 30 keys, 15 major and 15 minor, if you count twice the "enharmonic keys" like F# and Gb. But it still shouldn't take you more than a month to learn them all.)

Yeah, but if you take into account all the scales follow the same patterns, just laid out differently on the neck, learn that pattern and then all you need to do is choose the starting and ending points and the rest should just flow from there. At least, that works for me, but I'm a little odd.

 

[MalcolmAmos]

G|--|--------|---E---|---F---|-------|---G---|
D|--|--------|---B---|---C---|-------|---D--|
A|--|---F----|-------|---G---|--------|---A---|
E|--|---C----|-------|---D---|--------|---E---|
However, when I looked online to help reinforce what I learned, the major scale pattern is as follows:
G|--|---D----|-------|---E---|---F---|
D|--|---A----|-------|---B---|---C---|
A|--|---E----|---F---|-------|---G---|
E|--|---------|---C---|-------|---D---|
This is a different pattern/shape, with the third closer to the headstock than the root.

It's the same pattern just started differently -- use the C and D as a focus place. One starts where you pick up the E and A back of the C and the other one picks up the E and A ahead of the C.

Same notes. The one on the bottom happens over 4 frets, the other one happens over 5 frets. Use the one you like the best.

Good luck.

 

[BakerStreetMuse]

I generally teach the second way to my students. If and when you start to explore walking bass lines (I would strongly recommend it but I want you to go with what your teacher tells you) that pattern for the major scale lets you play the following bass line

C-E-G-A-Bb-A-G-E

a bit more comfortably when you use your middle finger in the left hand to play the ‘C’ and play ‘one finger per fret’ as tjh described earlier, especially playing closer to the nut. Bass lines with arpeggiated shapes like this are quite common in many musical styles. Don’t want to get too technical with you but I think knowing the second shape and having it down is really worth while.

Thanks for this!
The second way seemed to be what I was finding when I was searching for info on "major scale pattern for bass." My lessons haven't gone into walking bass lines yet but I do want to give the bass line you posted a try, once with the way I was taught and once with the way you teach it, if only to compare how comfortable it is. (Though I have a hunch that the second way will feel a lot better.)

When I go back to lessons, I'm thinking of looking for a different teacher anyway. Nothing at all to do with the topic of this thread or any lack of confidence in his abilities/knowledge/methods though.

I'd add two things that didn't sound here yet.

- practise schemes, but keep in mind that your ultimate goal in this is not to learn fingering schemes, but tones. Try to memorize 'this is C' instead of 'C is played on 8th fret with 2nd finger'. Why? So that you can use any C on the bass any time you need to use it. Later you'll probably learn that there are so many schemes that there's no chance to memorize them creatively. Watch Jaco Pastorius Modern Electric Video, to see what all becames possible if you are 'thinking tones'. I'm not a huge fan on Jaco myself, but most of the things he says is very clever and quite different from what I occasionaly hear from fellow bass players.

- as I am 40 now, my body starts to force me to play painlessly. I mostly use fingerings that are most comfortable for the situation. When the wrist start to hurt, I immediately look for more comfortable way. This is a good way to learn from the start I think, because the less you need to focus on your body, the more you can focus on the music. Practise your stretching, but also learn a baseball bat approach.

Great resources and info, thank you! I've always considered myself to be "tone-deaf" so this is definitely something to work on. I can already see some progress from where I was 2 months ago.

And also thank you for pointing out about there being too many patterns to memorize. I realize no one actually suggested doing this but I'm the type of person who would just presume I had to and then fail miserably after confusing myself.

 

[Doc Blue]

WARNING - long post, and my wife tells me I'm an eccentric old guy that doesn't think like a lot of other people. Proceed with caution.

I'm another noob, a lot of good information here. Just thought I would toss in 2 cents, some of which is repeated here and all repeated in other posts.

I first learned shape 2 in the OP's first post, starting on the A string 3rd fret. It's a 2-4, 1-2-4, 1-3-4 fingering pattern, (A, D, G string). I extended it to the E string to learn all the C scale notes near the end of the neck.

2-4, 1-2-4, 1-3-4 works for any major scale anywhere it is playable on the neck, for standard EADG or BEADG tuning.

It was easy to learn the shape, but it's critical to learn the tones. In the end it's a tone pattern, not a geometric pattern that one needs to know.

Now learn the location of all the C notes on the neck, and develop the scale where those notes are, and not just C to C, but all the notes in the C scale. After a while you are playing all over the neck. Practice shifting locations while maintaining rhythmic timing.

Repeat for other scales.

A light bulb for me to help find notes on the neck. Apologies for stating the obvious to many of you:

There are 12 increments in an octave. Half steps, semitones, frets, whatever you call them. A whole step is 2 half steps. Increments are also called intervals.

W-W-H-W-W-W-H or 2212221 is a major scale.

Strings are 5 half steps apart going up in pitch. Moving up (in pitch) one string gets you to the 4th note in the scale. Up one string up 2 frets takes you to the 5th, always. This is 7 frets, count them. Moving down a string is -5 frets. 12 notes in the octave, 12-5=7. 7 frets up from the lower octave. The 5th in the scale.

Back to an octave is 12 frets. Up 2 strings up 2 frets. Or up 1 string up 7 frets. Or up 12 frets.

Where's the major 3rd? Up 4 frets. 4 frets on the same string, or up one string and down (in pitch again) 1 fret. 5-1=4. Or -8 frets.

Now you know where the chord tones are in a major triad, and not just in one octave. Chord tones are generally played more in a harmonic bass line than the other scale tones. Learn these first. The 7th includes a little more chord theory-major, minor, diminished, etc. but fretboard math still works.

The same fretboard math works for minor scales, but learn WHWWHWW or 2122122 first. The 5th is the same, the 3rd is up 3 frets from the root. Find it on the same string as the root, up one string, and down one string. Blues and pentonic scales I think in interval numbers only.

Understanding the fretboard layout has really helped me. It works for every scale all because strings are 5 frets apart going up in pitch, and scales are defined by intervals.

Sorry for the long post, I spent a few bills over my 2 cents. I think I got all the information correct. Discussion, questions, clarification welcome.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

P.S. Don't try this on a 6 string guitar!

 

[MVE]

Just to take a very quick step backwards, you do know what tones, octaves and semi-tones are and what the Major scale is right?
It might help you to understand that there is no “best fingering” if you first know that any tones frequency can be doubled to reach its octave.
The space between the octaves has been divided into 12 equal parts called Semi-tones.
Each fret on your bass neck is one Semi-tone. Two frets, is a Whole-tone.
The major scale is: Whole, Whole, Semi, Whole, Whole, Whole, Semi.
So it doesn’t really matter what string you play the notes on as long as you play the right notes.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

Do not see scales as patterns, see them as intervals and notes.
On a standard 4 string bass play a scale from the lowest available note to the highest available note.

So for a C scale you start on open E, then play F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D, it is still a C Scale because the intervals are ordered such from the root of C, you just start on a different note within the C scale.

So you will find many ways to map your way way around the Fret Board, the same route ascending does not need to be the same descending.

Also in this exercise you will play a natural minor scale (Relative minor of C major) from the 6th degree, so A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A as it is part of the full extent of any major scale played over 2 octaves...so no need to see scales as Major or minor, one exercise does all.

Practice this idea for all scales to cover all 12 positions, again naming the notes as you go, maybe use flat names ascending and sharp names descending and vica-versa when they occur in en-harmonic positions....this is the best way to use scales and one of the most musical ways, which will make the use of learning chord tones, and extensions easier when you come to them.

 

[2F/2F]

Most notes on the bass have multiple locations. You play them wherever it makes the left hand movements feel the best, and where the tone sound the best (the different positions do have different tones).

 

[DaveAceofBass]

I must not understand the question. The notes are not shown in their proper positions.

What the OP posted (2nd time) is:
G|--|---D----|-------|---E---|---F---|
D|--|---A----|-------|---B---|---C---|
A|--|---E----|---F---|-------|---G---|
E|--|---------|---C---|-------|---D---|

But the note positions are as follows:

There is (for example) no C-note on the 3rd fret of the E string.

I don't understand.

Dude this is clearly at the 7th fret.

 

[Doc Blue]

A thought on intervals and notes. Major scale, 2212221.

Keep the intervals going both directions for all the notes

1222122122212212221

122212212221221221 major scale starting at the 1st degree
122212212221221221 relative minor at 6th degree

 

[HolmeBass]

I would work on both of those patterns. And there is a third common one. Eventually you want to be able to shift patterns mid-scale if you need to. Or start the scale on any degree and go either direction.

You don’t need to learn it all at once, just keep plugging away at it and learning songs and it will start to come together. Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” is a slow song whose bass line follows the G major scale.

 

[tjh]

.. no wonder she is confused

… some of the stuff in this thread is confusing me … we are numbering fingers, numbering intervals, and others just numbing the brain …

 

[Doc Blue]

Uh oh, you read my lengthy post. I better update the warning to include "written by an old eccentric guy that doesn't think like the rest of the world".

 

[Mushroo]

Being able to play scales on the bass is only part of the process of "learning" scales. In addition to knowing the correct fingerings to play each scale, you should also study these skills (listed in no particular order):

1. Be able to read each scale in standard music notation.
2. Be able to write each scale in standard music notation.
3. Understand the structure of each scale in half steps and whole steps.
4. Memorize the key signature that goes with each scale.
5. Memorize the note names of the notes in the scale.
6. Memorize the diatonic chords built on each degree of the harmonized scale.
7. Be able to sing each scale.
8. Be able to hear which scale is being used in a song.

 

[BadSanta1281]

Being able to play scales on the bass is only part of the process of "learning" scales. In addition to knowing the correct fingerings to play each scale, you should also study these skills (listed in no particular order):

1. Be able to read each scale in standard music notation.
2. Be able to write each scale in standard music notation.
3. Understand the structure of each scale in half steps and whole steps.
4. Memorize the key signature that goes with each scale.
5. Memorize the note names of the notes in the scale.
6. Memorize the diatonic chords built on each degree of the harmonized scale.
7. Be able to sing each scale.
8. Be able to hear which scale is being used in a song.

I knew I should have picked bongo drums instead of bass!

Good thing I have the whole rest of my life to work on this stuff.