Create Crazy Bass Fills With This Scale Ninja Tactic!
This week we’re looking at how you can inject some awesome juice into your bass fills, runs and solos by using an intervallic approach to shedding scales.
Getting Away From The Norm!
Many beginner to intermediate bass players see scale runs in a very linear, up & down fashion. You run up the scale and down the scale. You might also look at working some thirds in there or maybe even some arpeggios within the scale. But we can create some very interesting sounds by moving outside of this movement by second or third. We just have to look at the other intervals within a scale: Fourths, Fifths, Sixths, Sevenths etc.
The Dorian Scale
As an example for this lesson we’ll use the E Dorian Scale, shown below in 3 different fingerings:
E Dorian 1st Finger
If you’re new to the Dorian scale or any of these different fingerings, you can check out the Scale Essentials course HERE for a a deep dive into every scale played all over the fretboard.
Running Intervals
We can run various intervals through the scale to develop an understanding of the different interval qualities available on each scale degree.
E Dorian in Fourths
Let’s Try Them Out!
As a demonstration of how these intervals can be used within a bass fill, let’s look at three fills using each interval in turn. We’ll place each fill into the 4th bar of our riff:
Practice Track:
Hi Mark,
For your info the Video does not open via the Free Lesson Map.
Cheers
Rob Brayn
Hi Mark,
Great and realy crazy lesson, Thanks a
In the transcription „E dorian in sixths“ the tabs in the 2nd bar has errors (I assume you copied it from the Fifths). Also in the fills you missed the hammer ons in 1st fill and the slides in 3rd
Cheers
Reto
4ths, 5ths and 6ths! Seems like such a simple concept but I wouldn’t have thought of it. Great sounding riff and fills. Thanks
Dude, I got my bass back after several years without playing and your lessons have been so useful, I actually feel like I’m learning more now than when I took classes 10 years ago, hahaha. Thank you!
this cool….you gave me hope as a bassist
thanks talking bass
you have truly talk some sense in too my bass life
great lesson again.like marcelo,i got my bass back …and feel i already get better.thank you for all these very professional lessons.
At the tempo of the track, completly out of my reach. He is a very sadistic boy, and now i am crying in the fkn corner
I think the lesson was great.I caught the slide and the hammer on when I heard you playing them.thanks again for another great and simple lesson.
No pun intended
Some months later and i still say, holy shit, this is too fast for me
I agree with Ejita. This gives me hope also. WOW! What an amazing lesson!