Geni Swing Guitars

Bass Electric

Top 5 Reasons Bass Players Should Know Scales

Here's the short list of five top reasons why a bass player should know a bit about scales and music theory:

1. Know the layout of fretboard

When you know the layout of scale patterns it becomes much easier to create a visual map of the fretboard. It's like connect the dots. Since the fretboard starts over at the twelfth fret, it's a breeze to jump up to a high fret for a fill or solo lick. It's easier to do when you know scales because when you jump to the higher frets, you'll know where you're jumping to and what the pattern is once you get there. You'll never feel "trapped" in one spot on the fretboard again.

2. Develop coordination

Playing through scales is the best way to gain fretboard agility quickly. It's important to know scale patterns and practice playing through them often. This will give your hands and fingers muscle memory for those patterns. Being familiar with some different scale patterns and getting some muscle memory means the right notes will suddenly start appearing under your fingers before you even need to play them.

3. Quicker to communicate

Think of scales and music theory as a language or code. Notation on sheet music would be the written form. The point is that it's a fast way for musicians to communicate with one another. It makes it easier to explain an idea for a different way to play a song or tell someone how to play a song you wrote.

4. Play better bass in a band

Once you've had a chance to practice scale patterns and start to visualize the layout of the fretboard, you can listen, follow and react more closely to what your bandmates play. You will begin to get the notes under your fingers much faster. From practicing scales you will know the different sounds that different scales have. This becomes a tool you can use to identify whether the guitar player (for instance) is playing a Major or minor chord. Then just plug that scale pattern in off the root note. All these things make it easier for you to come up with your own cool sounding parts and add your own touch to cover tunes.

5. Learn songs faster

When you can hear whether a chord in a song is a Major or minor chord, you are on your way to having a developed ear. It becomes much easier to figure out songs when you have "big ears". This simply means that you can quickly recognize what it is that you're hearing and play it on your instrument. After that it's easy to figure out the root notes of the chord changes and then add in scale tones to taste.

Bass players who haven't taken the time to learn scales and a bit about music theory sometimes wonder if they should bother. The answer is yes, there are a whole lot reasons to learn a bit about it. For one thing, it's easy. There isn't really that much to know to apply basic knowledge of scales and music theory to the music a bassist already plays. Understanding how the music works makes it easier to control and get creative with the low end part.

About the Author

Jon Brickley has developed a series of step by step video tutorials for bass guitar students. Easy to understand lessons teach you bass guitar basics quickly or unlearn bad bass playing habits that are holding you back - Get your copy now by clicking here ==> http://www.overnightbassplayer.com

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