In this lesson we look at the Blues Scale (or Minor Blues Scale). This is a simple variation on the Minor Pentatonic from the previous lesson and is VERY common in all styles of pop, jazz and blues music.
In this preview clip from the upcoming Chord Tone Essentials course, we take a look at the 3 fingering patterns we can use for any single arpeggio. This allows us to break out of that common 1 octave box shape we can fall into and also sets the scene for more expansion over the whole…
This is the first in a short series of lessons devoted to playing bass on a 12 bar blues. I’ll be covering Blues Rock and Jazz Blues in upcoming lessons. Please Note: On this video the backing track has a very full sound and the bass can sound a little overpowered on smaller speakers. If…
This week we’re delving a little deeper into the Charlie Parker tune Billie’s Bounce. We’re going to breakdown the chord progression and look at applying the chord tones/arpeggios to bass guitar This is an essential part of learning a Jazz Standard and creating walking bass lines or solos. Billie’s Bounce Practice Tracks
This lesson covers how to play scales and arpeggios on the bass guitar but only descending from a high root note. This lesson was inspired by a Skype lesson I was giving recently on walking bass lines and the student was having problems with descending arpeggios. Ascending then descending was fine but descending from any…
In this lesson we’re going to look at the most common scale in all of rock, pop and funk bass – The E Minor Pentatonic Scale! E Minor Pentatonic This lesson will explore the E minor pentatonic scale which is built using degrees 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 of the E natural minor scale….
Arpeggios and chord tones are some of the most important patterns you can practice on bass guitar. We generally learn one octave shapes that fall easily under the fingers. Two octave arpeggios require a lot of position shifting and can be quite technically demanding. In this free online bass lesson, I’ll show you a system…
Hi Mark,
thanks for your great lessons. Using your lessons helped me to improve a lot.
And now I’ve got a question about this Blues Scale.
In the past I found some kind of extension to this scale and I wonder why this didn’t show up in your lessons.
C – Blues Scale:
G —-3 —- 5
D —-3 —- 4 —- 5
A —-3 —- 6
G – Blues Scale?
G —- 3 —- 5 —- 6
D —- 3 —- 5
A —- 3 —- 4 —- 5
E —- 3 —- 6
It feels right while playing it, but never showed up somewhere else. Any ideas where this comes from and can it used in a blues song? Or isn’t it a blues scale anymore?
Best regards
Armin
Very useful 👍🇺🇸
Awesome lesson. It confused me a bit that the sheet music for the riff didn’t match what we actually played but it was an easy adjustment.
great lesson like that blues note