This week we’re looking at how you can easily incorporate the Dorian scale/mode into your playing using a scale you already probably know really well: The Minor Pentatonic scale

The Good Ol’ Minor Pentatonic Scale!

OK, so most of you probably know a minor pentatonic scale. I’ve covered in loads of other lessons and it’s pretty much THE go-to rock scale.

If you don’t know that scale here are a few lessons here on Talkingbass you can use for study.

• Minor Pentatonic Scale
• The Must Know Scale For Every Rock Bass Player
• The 2 MUST KNOW Scales For Playing Over Everything

You can use it over minor chords and minor keys and you get instant cool riffs and fills. So if you don’t know it, learn it.

The Dorian Scale!

The Dorian scale is the second mode of the major scale. So if we’re in C major and we play from D to D. The second note. That’s a Dorian scale:

• C Major Scale: C D E F G A B
• D Dorian Scale: D E F G A B C

I’m not going to get into the theory of modes here because I want to focus on straight application so I’ll get straight into the big tip I’ve got for you:

All you have to do to incorporate a Dorian scale into your playing is use the Minor Pentatonic scale (like you always would) but add two extra notes in there: the Major Second and the Major Sixth.

That’s it. A Dorian scale is just a Minor Pentatonic scale with those 2 additional notes.

Let’s Compare Those Scales

So let’s look at a C Minor Pentatonic scale starting at the 8^th fret of the E string:

Now all we have to do is add those two extra notes. The D and the A:

Let’s Practice!

We can practice applying this Dorian scale by simply adding either of those two notes into our Minor Pentatonic riffs and fills. Don’t worry about playing scales up and down. That’s not how we make music. You want to know the actual sound and feel of those two notes in isolation. You want to know how both a major 2^nd and major 6^th sound when placed in context.

So just as in the fills lessons I released recently, let’s take a basic riff and then add some fills in there that use the Dorian scale:

Basic Riff:

You can use the following backing track as your playalong:

Fill #1 (using the major 2nd)

Fill #2 (using the major 6th)

Fill #3 (using both notes)