A major scale contains 7 notes, with the intervals being

Tone – Tone – SemiTone – Tone – Tone – Tone – Semitone

As an example, in the key of C (which has no sharps or flats) this means that the scale is

C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C

If we play the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th notes in the scale this gives us

C – D – E – G – A

These 5 notes are known as a Pentatonic scale (‘Penta’ is the Greek word for ‘Five’).

The great thing about a pentatonic scale is that if any of the notes in that scale are played over a matching chord, then it sounds okay, and does not clash. You can test this for yourself at a piano. Play a chord of C (C – E – G). Obviously the same notes from the scale will sound okay when played against it, so try the other notes. The D and the A also sound okay, (notes 2 and 6 from the scale) but the F and the B clash and don’t really fit, which is why they are excluded from the pentatonic scale.

The design of the bass, with the strings separated by 4ths, makes a pentatonic scale fall very nicely under the hand. The following slide shows how the pentatonic scale can be played at any position with a single hand shift.

If we play the first note of the scale at any point, and then shift the hand position, the rest of the scale is available using fingers one and four on the same string and then the string above. learning this closed position means that the pentatonic scale becomes available for any chord. For example, G pentatonic can be played by starting on the 5th fret of the D string.

Note – I am using the term fret throughout, which are of course virtual frets on the double bass, but most people relate to this rather than the classical half position, first position, etc.

In bluegrass, and other acoustic music, the flattened third is often added, which makes it a 6 note scale, confusingly still referred to as pentatonic. For example, G pentatonic becomes

G – A – Bb – B – D – E

Theres no need to go into a detailed explanation of why this works, it just sounds good, and gives a nice bluesy feel when using the scale in improvisation. Whether you choose to use it or not will ultimately depend on what you are playing – what ever the academic definition is, at the end of the day what sounds good is always what is correct!

The previous scale with the added flattened third now becomes this.

The 5th and 6th notes of the chord scale (the final 2 notes of the pentatonic scale) are also available on the sting below the starting note, in the same position, so an alternate way of playing the pentatonic scale is as follows.

It is possible to play a penatonic across two octaves with just two hand position changes, as shown below, starting on the E string and finishing on the G string.

Excercises

The following exercises are for G pentatonic – however they can be applied to all scales by simply changing the starting position. The examples are in both Tab and Notation format, and are available as PDF downloads from the Bass Exercises page. There are three exercises;

• Pentatonic over two strings, moving up
• Pentatonic over two strings, dropping down for the 5 and 6 (e.g D and E in G pentatonic)
• pentatonic over two octaves, using all four strings.
• Pay special attention to where the hand position changes.