Way back when I decided I wanted to learn guitar. Never got past the “good beginner” stage so switched to bass. With guitar I learned open chords and bar chords. Also learned the Blues scale (Minor Pentatonic with the extra notes?) and could play up and down the neck. When playing a Blues song on stereo, etc. I could usually play to it, especially lead, using the Blues scale. Even did an Open Mic night where they played 4 songs and I could hold my own.
So now I’m on bass. Have the basics for the Blues scale on it, but can’t quite figure out how to go up and down the neck. I also have the Major and Minor scale pretty much figured out in the first position (so don’t know how to move up the neck). Problem is, even when playing to a Blues song I just don’t seem to sound right. If I check the song out on YouTube I really can’t figure out what scale they are using, and they often use basically an out of scale note here and there.
So my question is, what scales should I learn? Especially when trying something other than a Blues song. Just trying to get to the same point I was with guitar where I can have a song playing and I can at least fake it. Would like to find some local musicians to jam with, but if I can’t get past the third note that won’t work, so hoping someone can say “Practice this, and this, and this!” I figure it’s probably not that easy of a question, but if you don’t ask you won’t know.
You will get lots of great scale advice but one thing I would suggest - if the instrument sounds “Wrong” as you move up the neck, the first thing I would do is check intonation.
Hm, since you know how to play these scales over the entire neck on a guitar, it should be easy to transfer that skill to a 4-string bass, which is essentially a guitar without the top B and E strings…
Otherwise, there are many diagrams available showing how the pentatonic shapes are “overlapping” or stitched together on the fretboard. Here, an example for the G minor pentatonic (note that the second shape is identical to the Bb major pentatonic):
You obviously have enough past experience with guitar to hold you in great stead in a jam. The Minor Pentatonic scale is the go-to for a ton of genres. I used it exclusively when I played bass in a band and it literally never failed me. To this day, on a ton of recordings, you will hear it used to great effect.
All that said, outside of that pattern, there is a vast universe of positions for scales and modes waiting for you, up and down the neck.
The gold standard for learning scale patterns, and where/how to play them, can be found in the Talking Bass “Scale Essentials for Bass Guitar” course. It is comprehensive and very thirough.
It’s not “fun” like B2B, nor particularly easy to do without personal commitment, but it is extremely worthwhile if you’re willing to absorb the video lessons and work through the material and practice, practice, practice as required.
FWIW, I find Mark to be a superb teacher. Highly recommended.
Here are a couple of the example of what I’m talking about.
Also this song, one of many Vulfpeck quirky little chromatic throughout the songs. I just love it, as the matter of fact I’ll transcribe this song and do the cover. Love it. Let me know if you want the Tab for this one when I’m done.
I use this a lot the little chromatic transition/fills really help especially when we have guess singer(s) they don’t wear IEMs and sometimes they get lost on the track. Giving them a little cue really helps.
This is something Josh mentions on BTB, but he doesn’t go into. And that’s learning different shapes of the same scale. E.g. when I was taking private lessons, my teacher had me memorize 3 different shapes for the major and minor scales: starting on the index finger, starting on the middle finger, and starting on the pinky. I also learned them in 2 octaves instead of 1. I imagine you can do this with pentatonic and other scales too.
I made sheet music/tabs for all these (on 5-string, but you can use the same shapes on 4-string). I’d be happy to share that on here if people are interested. But I’m relatively new here, so I don’t know if that’s allowed or not.
this is sort of the “next step” of scales. it is covered in depth in mark’s course although I would start with his chord tones course first (mark also says this is the preferred order, although many people do the scales one first).
You can do that of course, but you don’t have to. They’re just different shapes for the same scale. You can just learn them from a tab like the one I made, or figure them out yourself.
Once you learn a couple scales, like the major and minor scales (like in the BTB course), you know that a scale is just a certain pattern of intervals, or number of half-steps (e.g. the major scale is whole whole half, whole whole whole half).
Every scale you can imagine is online, and you can learn them on your own or in a decent music theory book.
No one has to do any given thing. But just as B2B is so effective due to its well thought-out course material and brilliant teacher, so are Talking Bass courses.
Personally, I taught myself how to play guitar starting at age 14. I wish to hell there had been instruction available as cohesive, coherent and astoundingly effective as B2B or Talking Bass back then.
So, yeah, everyone is absolutely free to follow whichever music learning path he/she chooses.
That said, I much prefer to take the shortest, most efficient musical paths I can possibly take. Luckily, there are several available today. YMMV
The nice thing about the Chord Tones course is it is not actually much about memorizing scales or similar; it’s more about learning intervals and how they fit together, and in particular, stacking thirds up and down the fretboard in ways that make sense in the context of which direction the song is moving. It’s a great course with just the right amount of theory and just the right amount of practical application.
Going back to the original question, I think Major, Minor, Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, and Blues scales are good ones to start with.
After that, maybe modes?
Learning them on bass will probably be a little easier compared to guitar since the bass is symmetrically tuned.
So once you learn one of the shapes of a particular scale (e.g. major scale), you can move that shape all over the neck to play it in any key and octave on the bass.
The likeness when the microphone obscures him is uncanny.
