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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Bass Guitar Scales : Why Study Them?

By Nick Dillon


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

Applying and knowing bass guitar scales has many pluses. It will allow you to play along with a band very easily, compose your own music, add strength your fingers, explore different styles of music, allow your music to convey emotion or feel and ultimately allow your playing to advance rapidly.

When you can implement and play different bass guitar scales you can very easily play along with a band simply by knowing what key they are 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 compose music because you already know how certain scales will sound. You won't need to experiment with various notes to know which ones give you the desired effect. This opens up your creative and expressive channels and lets you to apply the scale rather than experimenting with different sounding notes to give you a desired effect.

By using various bass guitar scales you can easily convey emotion with your bass playing. For example to create a darker sound you will likely know that the many minor scales will have this effect on your audience. To convey a happy, bright feel, you will already know that the major third found in, but not limited to the Ionian and Lydian modes will help convey this feeling. Thus by understanding how the different intervals contained in scales sound and feel, you can use this to customise your sound and message.

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 applying different bass guitar scales you can easily zero in on the specific sound of different genres of music. For example you may choose to learn the major pentatonic scale if you are interested in country music, or you may learn the Phrygian mode if you would like to add some Spanish "flavour" to your music. Certain scales are matched to certain styles and genres of music, by knowing the scales you can greatly add to the diversity of your sound.

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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