Bass Guitar Scales

One of the best ways to improve your bass playing is to actively practice bass guitar scales. The information in this article will discuss the importance of practicing scales and will show you where to locate resources on the Internet that will help you find all the bass scales you need.

When you begin to learn bass scales, you'll find they are typically written in tab form and look like the following two examples. At the end of this article, you'll find links for websites that embed generative applications within them that have the ability to create printable bass guitar scales for you on the fly.

In the following diagram, the horizontal lines are your four bass strings, the vertical lines are your frets. The top line is the G string, or the string with the highest pitch, and the bottom line is the E string, or the string with the lowest pitch. The Xs are written on the strings and correspond to where you should put your fingers on the strings to create the appropriate scale. For example, the first note, G, is on the low E string and is played at the third fret. The notes of the G Major scale are G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G.

|-----|--X--|-----|--X--|--X--|

|-----|--X--|-----|--X--|--X--|

|-----|--X--|--X--|-----|--X--|

|-----|-----|--X--|-----|--X--|

The G Minor scale features a flatted third note, or a B flat instead of a B.

|-----|--X--|--X--|-----|--X--|

|-----|--X--|-----|--X--|--X--|

|--X--|-----|--X--|-----|--X--|

|-----|-----|--X--|-----|--X--|

Of course. writing out all the possible scales for the bass guitar is beyond the scope of this article, but the above diagrams are what you will likely encounter when you set out to learn more scales on your bass.

Sometimes musicians hear the argument that practicing scales is a waste of time because it makes your playing too mechanical. These people often argue playing scales is not making music, and that instead of worrying about memorizing formulaic scales, you should try to play purely by feel. While this argument has its merits, it is rather short sighted. Learning how to play scales is not a guarantee that you will become a better musician, much like memorizing words out of the dictionary will not make you a better poet. However, this is not to say that learning scales cannot make you a more creative bass guitar player. Learning scales is simply another way for you to become familiar with your instrument.

When you practice playing scales, you accomplish several goals that work to your advantage as a musician. First of all, you strengthen your fingers and build up your physical stamina. This is particularly important on the bass guitar sincethe heavy-weight strings and large neck take their toll on your hand and wrist. Practicing scales is a great way to build up your chops for a long night of gigging. You can also use the time to work on your technique. Spending twenty or thirty minutes a day running through scales on the bass is a great way to concentrate on making sure that you are holding the bass in the correct playing position, moving your fingers in a calm relaxed manner and striking all of the notes clearly and confidently. The more you do this in practice, the more natural it becomes when you actually get down to playing songs.

Depending on which key the song you are playing is in, some notes work well and others don't. If you want to convey a warm, harmonious feel, you will likely play notes of the major keys, but if the song calls for a darker, ominous feel, minor notes will be needed. In order for you to have command of these creative decisions, you will need to know which notes to play in each playing situation. The best way to accomplish this goal is to practice scales. The more you play different types of scales, the mere act of repetition begins to engrain the notes and sounds into your head and hands. Your ear becomes more keenly aware of what different notes sound like in different keys, and your muscle memory in your hands becomes more developed. Over time, your fingers seem to have a mind of their own because they have become conditioned to go where they are supposed to go.

The more you know about the notes on your instrument and the better your technique is, the more confident your playing becomes. Instead of worrying whether or not your notes are ringing out clearly or whether or not you are playing the right notes for the right keys, you can focus on expressing what you feel the song needs through your playing. In this way, practicing scales on the bass guitar can actually lead you to become a more creative, expressive and heartfelt player because you have more tools and skills to draw from. Additionally, you can call on those skills quicker and easier. If you want to be a better bass player, practicing bass guitar scales needs to become an essential part of your practice regiment.

• Angel Fire – Angel Fire has a list of most of the major bass scales a bassist would need to know. Major scales, minor scales, diminished scales, augmented scales and many more can be found here.

• Study Bass – Study Bass has an amazing tool that bassists can use to print scales and chords. Simply select the instrument (four, five or six stringed bass), the tuning and which scale you want, and the computer will generate a scale chart that you can print and use to practice.

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