For a while now I have been pondering the correct way to go about learning bass guitar scales. I’m in two minds about how best to approach it or even if learning bass scales is necessary at all.
I have always taught people the basic bass scales as I feel they do give a good foundation to use for bass line building and playing. I know some musician choose not to learn theory at all and others spend more time learning theory than playing music.
I feel the best approach is balance. Knowing your bass scales is never a bad thing but you need to know how to apply them to your bass. It’s no good knowing a million different scales and then never using them or spending so much of your life with your head in a text book that you forget to actually play music.
A few good scales to learn are the major scale, the minor scale and the blue scale. These will help give you a good base on which to expand and build on. For some people the need to take scales any further is not needed. For others the thought of not knowing every scale on the sun is blasphemy.
At the end of the day I think the best advice I can offer you is look at what you want to achieve on bass. Once you have a clear goal and focus of where you are heading work backwards and see if knowing lots of scales is one of the steps needed to get you to where you want to be.
What do you think about learning bass guitar scales? Leave me a comment below I’d love to hear you opinion.
- Tom
Related posts:
I think it is a good idea that you tell people that they need to learn there scales … iv been in band for almost seven years at school and it came in handy … but im trying to play base now … and i wanna now if there is anyway i can move faster or get my fingers father apart with out the splitting pain i usually feel cuz im getting artharitis
It’s a good idea to do warm up exercises before you begin playing to help get your hands and finger going.