Today we’re going to look at the most basic of scales, the major scale and I’m going to show you how you probably don’t really know it the way you think you do!

Do You Know The Major Scale?

Most bass players learn a major scale as a basic fingerboard pattern, usually in one octave.

Learning scales as basic fingerboard patterns is OK but at the end of the day, you’re simply learning a physical fingering and then moving it around. You’re not really learning anything beyond that.

How many times are you actually going to play a piece of music that involves playing up and down a major scale pattern like that?

Also, if we’re only learning a major scale as a physical movement then that’s all we’re practicing. When you do that, you’re not learning all the different major scales as separate entities and most importantly you’re not learning anything about keys.