How are Chromatic and Whole-tone Scales differing from major scales?

by Ari 28 Apr 2017 1 minute read

Got a request to answer how symmetric scales and major scales are differing

Fun one, with sound samples!

For bass players in particular, symmetric scales are awesome to play with!

  • They help understand the fretboard and how notes relate between strings
  • These symmetric scales sound great
  • They are symmetric, so you can move cool licks around by the interval they are symmetric in – so move up and down strings and betwen strings to your heart’s content for some fresh sounds
  • They help understand how notes relate in general. The piano is a great visual aide here – look, color-coded!

Read Ariane Cap‘s answer to How do chromatic and whole-tone scales differ from major scales? on Quora

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Hi. I'm Ari.

As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

 

As a bass teacher, I have taught at London Bass Day, Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, SBL, Truefire, notreble… I even ran my own music school for a few years before gigs took me back on the road.

 

One thing to know about me is that I teach because I am absolutely fascinated with the learning process. And I am obsessed with helping others realize their musical potential.

 

When I started playing bass, I excelled very quickly because I had an amazing teacher who taught me using a powerful method. This method transformed my playing so quickly that I passed a bunch of high-level university auditions and even tested out of entire classes at university even though I had been playing for only a very short time.

 

That’s what, many years later turned into one of my books, co-written with Wolf Wein, called “The Pattern System for the Bass Player”. I created entire systems of learning based on some of these ideas and wrote books and created courses together with Wolf. Our bass books have sold over 30,000 copies and garnered rave reviews.

 

I started teaching online in 2009 and have embraced technology as a powerful learning tool since then, never losing sight of the importance of providing feedback and personalized guidance to learners.

 

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