5 EASY Scale Shapes Every Bassist Should Know!

Pentatonic scale bass shapes are some of the most important and foundational scale shapes to learn on your bass neck. Make sure you master the 5 shapes in this lesson!

Of all the bass scales that you really need to know, the pentatonic scale is one of the most important. You really can't NOT learn it.

The reason is that it's used in so many popular songs of almost every style. And a lot of the things we do as bass players - playing riffs, unison lines, creating fills and much more - make use of the pentatonic bass scales.

It's not up for debate. You really need to memorize all 5 shapes of the pentatonic scale.

Make sure you follow the tips in this video to find out how!

#pentatonicscale #TeachMeTuesday #bassscales

Once you understand how to use pentatonic scale on bass guitar then be sure to look at the lesson linked above which takes the pentatonic scale bass exercises from this video and expands them to a new level by using them with a full major scale.

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[OnlineBassGuitar]

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[Brankas]

Best bass lesson I've ever had. Felt like the biggest step in 2 years with just noodling around with my bass. Thank you

[CalvinMoore-sqpn]

This is me back again, and I just had that ah ha moment 😊. You are playing the notes in the G minor pentatonic scale, I was getting hung up on the root note. Noticed the pattern when you said up scale vs down scale. Good stuff. Thanks 😊

[rustknale]

Thank you for your insights and helpful video & friendly manner. Appreciated.

[barondavis]

Nice job, not only showing the minor pentatonic scale but the progression too. Thank you.

[HIPCHIP]

Great video. Actually taught me where other videos assume you already know the entire fretboard. Thank you for taking the time to make this simple to understand. Gives me something to practice regularly.

[kevmac]

What a great lesson.I have played bass for over 4 decades and this is how young players should be taught.So different from the lessons I was given starting out, (nothing against Mel Bay)it would've made things easier.Fantastic job!

[GoodGod]

This was a great video. I had a really hard time learning the pentatonic scales but you made it easy. Thank you 🙏🏾

[VincentDonovan-qnwi]

Aspiring bass junkie with elementary music training...
It almost looks like this is all I need

[face]

Been watching a lot of scale lessons lately, and this, by far, this has helped the most. Love the exercise shown at the end.

[CalvinMoore-sqpn]

I understand the shapes, but my question is how to determine what notes to play in those various shapes? The notes for minor pentatonic or major do not repeat. This is a hard concept to explain here.

[jaspertuin]

Hi everyone, I was wondering, are there standard ''pathways'' or movements that I could learn to move between these and other scales? For example how would I best transition from Classic minor to Classic major? Or does that depend on rootnotes or something? I hope My question was clear enough (be kind I'm only a beginner in music theory :p)

[bloopagaloota]

This might sound like a dumb question but can you play any shape starting on any note on the neck or do the shapes change based on what note you start on? Does the shape depend on the formula of the scale (I'm not sure what that is, but for example: whole note, whole note, half note, etc?) I'm new to scales and am not sure that it is clicking. I'm sorry if that's a loaded question or if it doesn't make sense.

[RustyFender]

So.... I've seen this Pentatonic scale thing presented many times, but how the hell do you use it? No one says how to put it the practical use! So if you're playing along over a "G" using the 1st pattern at the 3rd fret and your next chord is "F" do you go all the way up to the 13th fret and play the 5th pattern? Or would you just play the 1st. Pattern 2 frets lower ? Or do you just go to the "F" on the 3rd fret of D string and use the 1st pattern until you run out of notes to play that pattern on in that position?

[maco]

can you show the graph from the beggining of every example instead of at the end? it helps some of use noobies better

[thetoddkeith]

Why isnt the shape the same across the entire fretboard?

[adhanda]

the crappy music in the background is really annoying.