BASS PLAYER Lesson Eight Página 1 de 4

P L AY I N G S CAL E S D I AGON AL L Y

I hope that the inter vallic s tudies we have wor ked with s o far have ins pir ed you to move outs ide of your technical ëcomfor t zoneí.
Above all els e, I hope that you have become mor e accus tomed to hear ing thes e s hapes on your own, and likewis e have become
better able to r ecognize thes e s ounds in the mus ic you hear . T his time ar ound I would like to s har e with you another appr oach to
s cales and modes that will take us out of a s ingle pos ition and allow us to move diagonally acr os s the neck. T his way we ar e able
to cover a lar ger por tion of r eal es tate on the finger boar d, and move to differ ent r anges of the bas s neck ins tantly us ing a
minimal amount of movement.

Playing diagonally is r eally j us t a glor ified way of s ub gr ouping the notes fr om a s cale into s maller por tions s epar ated by
inter vals . For all of the ex er cis es played in this les s on, we will be us ing an inter val of a diatonic 3r d to s epar ate each s cale
fr agment, and each s cale fr agment will be compos ed of thr ee cons ecutive notes fr om each s cale.

Wr itten in a for mula, the appr oach might look like this (each number r epr es ents its r es pective degr ee of the s cale):

1,2,3, [ s hift s tar ting finger up a diatonic 5th] 5,6,7, [ s hift s tar ting finger up a diatonic 5th] 9,10,11, [ s hift s tar ting finger up a
diatonic 5th] 13,14,15, etc...

T he only condition we will place on this ex er cis e is that each 3 note s cale fr agment will begin with finger 1 (the index finger ) of
the fr etting hand. T hat for ces the fr etting hand to change pos itions after each 3 note gr ouping, and this is the key to the
ex er cis e.

T her e ar e a couple of ways of looking at this . Letís take the ionian mode, for ex ample, applied to a 4 s tr ing bas s . Us ing this
appr oach, we begin with our hand in our typical 3 note per s tr ing pos ition (fig.1). However , we will not be playing all the notes of
the s cale fr om this pos ition:

F i g.1

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BASS PLAYER Lesson Eight Página 2 de 4

Notice that your index finger is lined up with the r oot of the s cale. S tar ting with this finger ing, we would play the fir s t 3 s cale
degr ees of the patter n, 1, 2, 3. T hen, we would s hift our hand to the nex t s tr ing in or der to place our index finger up a diatonic
5th fr om our s tar ting note (the 5th degr ee of the s cale). We then would play thr ee mor e notes of the s cale s tar ting with the 5th,
5,6,7. Once again we would move our s tar ting finger up a diatonic 5th fr om the 5, and then play s cale degr ees 9,10,11. Finally,
we would move our s tar ting finger up another diatonic 5th fr om the 9 and then play s cale degr ees 13,14,5. I n patter n for m, it
would look like fig. 2:

F i g. 2
ion i an

Another way of des cr ibing this appr oach for ionian is as follows : Us ing 3 notes per s tr ing, fir s t play the fir s t 3 notes of I onian.
T hen move your s tar ting pos ition up a diatonic 5th and play the fir s t 3 notes of mix olydian fr om the 5. T hen move your s tar ting
pos ition up another diatonic 5th and play the fir s t 3 notes of dor ian. Finally, move your s tar ting pos ition up another diatonic 5th
and play the fir s t 3 notes of aeolian. On a 4 s tr ing bas s , this would be as high as you could as cend befor e r unning out of s tr ings .

T he patter ns for each of the r emaining 6 maj or s cale bas ed modes ar e outlined in figur es 3- 8. Pr actice each of thes e in both
as cending and des cending fas hion. Pay clos e attention to your finger ings , as they will as s is t you in making clean s hifts fr om s tr ing
to s tr ing.

T op

F i g. 3
dor ian

F i g. 4
ph r ygi an

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BASS PLAYER Lesson Eight Página 3 de 4

F i g. 5
lydi an

F i g. 6
m ix ol ydi an

F i g. 7
aeol ian

F i g. 8
locr i an

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BASS PLAYER Lesson Eight Página 4 de 4

T op

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