Talk to bass or guitar players and they'll often downplay the importance of music theory, and in particular, scales. But the reality of the situation is that scales have A LOT to offer to both kinds of players (guitarists and bassists), and they're really missing out by having the close-minded view that scales are not required. Any kind of genre of music uses scales to some degree, and learning them will make you a better player and a better musician.
But what are scales? This is an excellent question, and a great place to start. In this article we'll provide an introduction to scales and go over the benefits you'll experience from learning them.
Scales are a very basic but fundamental part of music theory. Simply, scales are an ordered set of notes in ascending or descending order. A scale is constructed and defined by two things. Firstly, the "root" note, which is the lowest note in the scale. Secondly, and a set of "intervals," which are the distances between sequential notes in the scale.
Learning scales is worth your time. Why? Well, regardless of the kind of music you're playing, whether it's punk rock, death metal, pop music or jazz, musical scales will help you pick which note to play during a particular musical phrase. This is because scales are lists of notes that sound "right" together. By picking the right scale, you're setting yourself up with a sure-fire recipe for selecting notes that will work in a given situation.
This sounds very imprecise and impractical though. What does this mean for us as musicians? Well, quite a few things. The most immediate thing learning scales will do for us is make us better and more efficient at composing music. Instead of stumbling on the right note by trial and error when writing a song, our knowledge of scales will provide us with a broad vocabulary of notes that we can pick from, depending on what we're trying to achieve in the composition.
But this isn't the only reason we would want to learn how to play scales. They also make it possible for us to compose WHILE we're playing. This practise, called improvising, is a staple of soloing. By knowing what notes will work ahead of time (by having a good knowledge of scales), we can select notes in real-time and play unique, good sounding solos on the spot.
Besides composition and improvisation, scales are a great way to improve your skills on the instrument in general. Scales make great drills. One of the most well-known exercises propagated by music teachers all over the world is the constant playing and replaying of scales. Although this can be monotonous at times, playing scales definitely improves your technique on your instrument of choice.
We now know why scales are important. But we now need to know how to learn them, and in the information age, this couldn't be more convenient. Because we all have access to the internet, we also can access a pretty much unlimited supply of scale charts, patterns and scores. With a few simple search queries we can gain access to any scale in any key that we want to learn. This gives us the ability to quickly and easily learn how to play scales in the safety of our own home for very minimal cost.
After reading this we're sure that you'll understand just how great a benefit learning scales will be to you as a bass guitarist. You should definitely learn scales as a part for your regular practice routine, and try to incorporate them into your playing and composing where ever possible.
But what are scales? This is an excellent question, and a great place to start. In this article we'll provide an introduction to scales and go over the benefits you'll experience from learning them.
Scales are a very basic but fundamental part of music theory. Simply, scales are an ordered set of notes in ascending or descending order. A scale is constructed and defined by two things. Firstly, the "root" note, which is the lowest note in the scale. Secondly, and a set of "intervals," which are the distances between sequential notes in the scale.
Learning scales is worth your time. Why? Well, regardless of the kind of music you're playing, whether it's punk rock, death metal, pop music or jazz, musical scales will help you pick which note to play during a particular musical phrase. This is because scales are lists of notes that sound "right" together. By picking the right scale, you're setting yourself up with a sure-fire recipe for selecting notes that will work in a given situation.
This sounds very imprecise and impractical though. What does this mean for us as musicians? Well, quite a few things. The most immediate thing learning scales will do for us is make us better and more efficient at composing music. Instead of stumbling on the right note by trial and error when writing a song, our knowledge of scales will provide us with a broad vocabulary of notes that we can pick from, depending on what we're trying to achieve in the composition.
But this isn't the only reason we would want to learn how to play scales. They also make it possible for us to compose WHILE we're playing. This practise, called improvising, is a staple of soloing. By knowing what notes will work ahead of time (by having a good knowledge of scales), we can select notes in real-time and play unique, good sounding solos on the spot.
Besides composition and improvisation, scales are a great way to improve your skills on the instrument in general. Scales make great drills. One of the most well-known exercises propagated by music teachers all over the world is the constant playing and replaying of scales. Although this can be monotonous at times, playing scales definitely improves your technique on your instrument of choice.
We now know why scales are important. But we now need to know how to learn them, and in the information age, this couldn't be more convenient. Because we all have access to the internet, we also can access a pretty much unlimited supply of scale charts, patterns and scores. With a few simple search queries we can gain access to any scale in any key that we want to learn. This gives us the ability to quickly and easily learn how to play scales in the safety of our own home for very minimal cost.
After reading this we're sure that you'll understand just how great a benefit learning scales will be to you as a bass guitarist. You should definitely learn scales as a part for your regular practice routine, and try to incorporate them into your playing and composing where ever possible.
About the Author:
Deke Siver is a bass player with passion. Click here to learn more about his history and to get access to all the scales you need to excel as a bass player.