Learning Bass Guitar Scales for Beginners

Learning bass scales for beginners is similar to learning the guitar scale. A bass scale is basically a specific group of musical notes that work together to create a unique sound or feeling. Scales are utilized to aid in organizing musical ideas and give musicians a structure for composition and improvisation. Learning bass scales can help to strengthen your fingers and improve your dexterity, it can also aid in your understanding for the individuals between different notes and the relationships between them.

The Chromatic Scale

This is the most basic scale in Western music and involves all twelve musical notes. It moves up in half steps from the selected original note to its corresponding note one octave higher. Although you can use any note as the root note, you will use E in the following exercise to learn bass guitar scales:

• Begin by playing the 4th string "Open". This is an E and this will be used as the root note.
• With your index finger, hold down the first fret on the fourth string and play the note. This is the F note
• Move up half-step and play the F# note using your ring finger
• Move up another half-step and play the G note
• Move up another half-step to play the G# note
• Do it again and play the rest of the notes in the E Chromatic Scale. Remember the fact that you are ending on the same note that you started on, which is E, although one octave higer.

You have just successfully played your first scale! You can practice and play this scale using different notes as your root.

The Major Scale

Considered to be one of the most important and popular scales in music. You can easily recognize the Major Scale even if you have a little inclination in music: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. It has a lively and upbeat quality that helps form the basis of songs that are built around major chords. If Chromatic Scales uses only half-steps in its constructions, Major scales uses a combination of whole and half-steps.

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