Practice a scale using this practical trick!

by Ari 14 Jul 2023 2 minute read

1 Minute Scale Practice

This trick will immediately open up a chord into a scale for you! Example scale: Eb mixolydian!

 

Practice with me!

Free TAB and diagrams here

#A2

 

Video Transcript

One minute scale practice with Ari! Practice a scale!

Take any scale you want to learn – let’s say Eb mixolydian. What you do is you take a triad inside that scale [ Ari plays the triad ] just the triad: root-three-five and then eight.

And then you play a little embellishment from every single one of those triad notes: up one, whole step down (because it’s mixolydian, right) Then from the root, from the 3rd: 3-4-3-2-3; from the 5th:: 6-5-4-5. and from the octave 8-b7-8.

If you do that, you hit every single scale degree. [ Ari plays it all ] and is eminently practical because the chord’s gonna say Eb7 for example, and all you need to know is the triad notes – one up, one down from there.

Check out my cool Marleaux Basses

 

Check this variety of helpful articles:

 

Free TABS and diagrams here: 

#A2

 

Video Transcript

One minute scale practice with Ari! Practice a scale!

Take any scale you want to learn – let’s say Eb mixolydian. What you do is you take a triad inside that scale [ Ari plays the triad ] just the triad: root-three-five and then eight.

And then you play a little embellishment from every single one of those triad notes: up one, whole step down (because it’s mixolydian, right) Then from the root, from the 3rd: 3-4-3-2-3; from the 5th:: 6-5-4-5. and from the octave 8-b7-8.

If you do that, you hit every single scale degree. [ Ari plays it all ] and is eminently practical because the chord’s gonna say Eb7 for example, and all you need to know is the triad notes – one up, one down from there.

Check out my cool Marleaux Basses

Another video you might like: How to tune a bass

Wanna take it further? Check out Scales over Two Octaves

More triad drills to try out!

A fun and creative way to practice your scales!

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Groove enthusiast and learning nerd.

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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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