Monday, February 14, 2011

Bass Guitar Scales : Why Study Them?

By Nick Dillon


Learning bass guitar scales will improve your playing on many different levels. It will give you the creative and expressive means to grow as a musician making your playing more enjoyable and fulfilling.

Utilising various bass guitar scales has many advantages. It will allow you to play with a band very easily, explore different genres of music, strengthen your fingers, create your own music, allow your music to convey emotion and ultimately allow your playing to progress very quickly.

When you can play bass guitar scales you can very easily jam with a band simply by knowing what key they are playing in. This means you can improvise in most situations very easily, as you know exactly what notes are available to you.

By knowing bass guitar scales it is easy to create music because you already know how certain scales sound. You don't need to experiment with notes to know which ones give you the desired effect. This opens up your creative channels and allows you to apply the scale rather than experimenting with different notes to give you a desired effect.

By applying bass guitar scales you can easily convey emotion with your music. For example to create a darker sound you will already know that minor scales have this effect on your audience. To convey a happy, bright feel, you will already know that the major third will help convey this feeling. Thus by knowing how the different intervals contained in scales sound and feel, you can convey your message more accurately in your playing.

By learning bass guitar scales and repeating them in a repetitive manner you will strengthen your fingers and embed the scale pattern in your playing. This will allow you to play effortlessly over time, as your fingers will eventually fall into the scale shape patterns without much thought. Your playing will be more enjoyable and relaxed as your fingers naturally know where the right notes sit on the fretboard.

By utilising different bass guitar scales you can easily zero in on a particular style or genre of music. For example you may choose to learn the pentatonic scales if you are interested in blues music, or you may learn the Lydian mode if you would like to add a spacey, eerie feel to your music. Certain scales are associated with certain styles and genres of music. By knowing the different scales and how they sound, you can greatly add to the diversity and colour of your music.

So there you have it, by learning bass guitar scales your playing will advance rapidly in many different ways. Even by learning just a few scales relevant to the type of music you are interested in and knowing how to change the key of these scales will open up many avenues to your bass guitar playing.




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