Scales for the Upright Bass Guitar

Video Transcript

"Hi! I am Branson Garner, and on behalf of expertvillage.com, we’re going to be talking about, in this segment, how to create walking bass lines using scales, in creating walking bass lines in jazz music. Alright, when taking scales and putting them into walking bass line, what we basically do is we outline the chord. So say you have an A minor 7 on chord. So you take the A minor 7 scale. You can use that to create a walking bass line. But if you notice, there are only 7 notes in a scale. In jazz music, we want the scale to end right on the 1. If we just do the regular 7 notes, it will be hard to end it on the 1. So jazz players created something called the bebop scale, which basically adds an extra note into the scale. It either adds it on the third of the scale, so you have a flat third and a major third. Or it adds it on the fifth, which is a sharp 5 or a major 5. Or it adds it on the 7, which would be a flat 7 and a major 7. I will demonstrate that. So say we have the A minor scale again. This is right on the B. I just added that sharp fifth there. I can add that sharp 7. As you add those extra notes using the bebop scale, keep that in mind. Again, it’s adding either a flat third, or sharp, or flat fifth, or a flat seventh, or a major 7. Just adding that one chromatic there, we can make the note sound right on the 1. That’s what we want when you play jazz music, is for that to get right on the 1, right on the beat. And if you’ll be there, you’ll be a solid bass player. People will call you for gigs and everything like that. So that’s how you use the scale method when playing walking bass lines."