2 octave scales

[paul_c2]

How do you play/practice 2 octave scales?

Why do you practice 2 octave scales like that?

[scalpy]

There's a really useful video by Scott Devine on this one.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VmBy7XA0ceI

For me it boils down to- reach pinky, slide to next note, cross string and repeat. Reverse for descending.

As to why, it's always useful to be over capacity in terms of technique, it affords a degree of grace that is more pleasant to listen to. Think Ferrari doing 100 miles an hour rather than a Ford Focus. You cover the same amount of ground but i believe the former would be more graceful!

If you want to hear this in action have a listen to the numerous play along videos springing up to Vulfpeck's Dean Town. They can play it, but Joe Dart's over capacity technique affords him the opportunity to put more inflection and style into the lines which gives it so much more life. (At least to the plays alongs I've watched so far, and if I did one I'd view my own playing the same way!)

[ras52]

With a left-hand pattern of 1-2-4 1-2-4 1-2-4 1-2-4 1-3-4, with 1 and 2 spanning a major second in the first two groups. This allows the full two octaves to be played with only position shift on a four-string, or without changing position on a five-string.

Edited November 15, 2016 by ras52

[paul_c2]

[quote name='scalpy' timestamp='1479195267' post='3174576']
There's a really useful video by Scott Devine on this one.

[url="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VmBy7XA0ceI"]https://m.youtube.co...h?v=VmBy7XA0ceI[/url]

For me it boils down to- reach pinky, slide to next note, cross string and repeat. Reverse for descending.

As to why, it's always useful to be over capacity in terms of technique, it affords a degree of grace that is more pleasant to listen to. Think Ferrari doing 100 miles an hour rather than a Ford Focus. You cover the same amount of ground but i believe the former would be more graceful!

If you want to hear this in action have a listen to the numerous play along videos springing up to Vulfpeck's Dean Town. They can play it, but Joe Dart's over capacity technique affords him the opportunity to put more inflection and style into the lines which gives it so much more life. (At least to the plays alongs I've watched so far, and if I did one I'd view my own playing the same way!)
[/quote]

Great, thanks for the link and the example. I was on the right track - I'd never rigidly followed a fingering I "must do" but knew about the 3 different shapes/patterns to play scales with, extended them to cover all 4 strings (ie playing the few notes above or below the octave in that position), then freely slid between them if a piece needed position shifts.

I'd learnt how to do "a" 2 octave scale but never really put it into practical use because none of the music I played, really needed it. And of course, real world examples are never just running up and down a scale!

[Hector]

You can extend Scott Devine's major scale fingerings into 5 positions on the bass (these positions repeat after 5). They're here: http://www.cyberfretbass.com/scales/major/page4.php

(N.B. I don't like to cover a major 3rd in one hand position, so I don't use it that much, these 5 positions use only two of Scott's fingerings, but you would have some intermediate positions in addition to these 5 if you wanted to use his third fingering that covers a major third).

Everything I do on the bass is based on these 5 positions, they're totally foundational.

What I do is I set the metronome at 60bpm and choose my key of the day. I then play the major scale in that key both across and within positions, making sure to cover the neck entirely (for covering multiple positions: it's possible to slide on one finger to cross to the next adjacent position or jump positions by shifting the whole hand). You can play two octave (and more) scales by switching between positions on any of the strings, just explore them.

Because I believe in maximising the effectiveness of my limited shedding time, I add a timing element to scales. You should do the following, doesn't matter which fingerings you want to use.

Instead of playing them in one single subdivision (e.g. just quavers), I vary the speed every two bars (8 clicks - we're assuming 4/4 here). So I'll play 8 clicks on one note per click (crotchets) then 8 clicks of two notes (quavers) then three notes (quaver triplets) then four notes (semiquavers). I would then, at least to start with, go down a subdivision every 8 clicks until you're back at crotchets. You could subdivide even further, 5 notes per click, 6 notes per click etc, but I would start with going 1 to 4 to get those solid.

It makes everything much harder, but therefore makes you improve faster! This really works your time and forces your technique and knowledge of the scale you're currently playing to be solid as well. You'll really suck at this to start with

This covers majors (and by extensions all major modes). Minors are slightly different, and I have my own fingerings for melodic minor in particular. That's another discussion though!

[paul_c2]

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1479220174' post='3174831']
You can extend Scott Devine's major scale fingerings into 5 positions on the bass (these positions repeat after 5). They're here: [url="http://www.cyberfretbass.com/scales/major/page4.php"]http://www.cyberfret...major/page4.php[/url]

(N.B. I don't like to cover a major 3rd in one hand position, so I don't use it that much, these 5 positions use only two of Scott's fingerings, but you would have some intermediate positions in addition to these 5 if you wanted to use his third fingering that covers a major third).

Everything I do on the bass is based on these 5 positions, they're totally foundational.

What I do is I set the metronome at 60bpm and choose my key of the day. I then play the major scale in that key both across and within positions, making sure to cover the neck entirely (for covering multiple positions: it's possible to slide on one finger to cross to the next adjacent position or jump positions by shifting the whole hand). You can play two octave (and more) scales by switching between positions on any of the strings, just explore them.

Because I believe in maximising the effectiveness of my limited shedding time, I add a timing element to scales. You should do the following, doesn't matter which fingerings you want to use.

Instead of playing them in one single subdivision (e.g. just quavers), I vary the speed every two bars (8 clicks - we're assuming 4/4 here). So I'll play 8 clicks on one note per click (crotchets) then 8 clicks of two notes (quavers) then three notes (quaver triplets) then four notes (semiquavers). I would then, at least to start with, go down a subdivision every 8 clicks until you're back at crotchets. You could subdivide even further, 5 notes per click, 6 notes per click etc, but I would start with going 1 to 4 to get those solid.

It makes everything much harder, but therefore makes you improve faster! This really works your time and forces your technique and knowledge of the scale you're currently playing to be solid as well. You'll really suck at this to start with

This covers majors (and by extensions all major modes). Minors are slightly different, and I have my own fingerings for melodic minor in particular. That's another discussion though!
[/quote]

Agree. The 5 positions are derived from Scott's main 2 positions (root under 2nd finger, root under 4th finger) but considering that root on different strings, as different positions. Its not such as issue on bass, because its tuned in 4ths; as it is guitar where the positions extend to the B and top E strings (the B isn't a 4th from G). In fact, the 5 positions relate directly to the CAGED system on guitar. And, CAGED can be extended to 7 positions, since there's 7 different notes in a scale and you could place any of those notes underneath your first finger. In summary, the main 2 positions on bass; and the main 5 positions on guitar, are a useful system for knowing the location of the notes of a scale; but can be extended if desired.

Regarding scales practice, it is truer than ever that "you are what you practice". Particularly when it comes to improvising melodic lines on the spot, if you limit yourself to practising scales up and down from root to root, then your improvised lines will also take on this appearance. A thorough practice/understanding of scales should involve:

1. Play up and down root to root (the basic scale)
2. Play up and down, but change directions randomly, not just at reaching the root or the first/last note in a particular position
3. Patterns like 123 234 345 and 1234 2345 3456 and 13 24 35 46 57 and 21 32 43 54 65 76 etc should be done (there's loads of different variations of these)
4. Play random notes from the scale, aim to not repeat the same note twice etc

This way, the particular position you're in becomes thoroughly familiar, not just learnt as an abstract technical exercise. It builds upon your suggestion of altering the rhythms played.

Also, I'll add:

5. Play the same dynamic, but accelerate/decelerate the speed through the scale (smoothly)
6. Play the same tempo, but increase/decrease the dynamic (don't get faster when you get louder!)
7. Play but decelerate AND get louder; or accelerate and get louder, etc

Of course, those can be done in both directions both ways.

[Hector]

Great ideas Paul. Especially the dynamics - lots of people overlook this, and end up being fixed playing certain things at a certain dynamic.

Another thought I've been having about multiple ways to practice scales: I feel it's important to balance making practice efficient with absorbing a few concepts more completely. The point of having a specific exercise is to isolate and improve a specific aspect of your playing. I think therefore that trying to improve too many aspects of your playing at once can sometimes be counter productive in improving any one aspect.

It's good to be working on at least one other thing past just where to put your fingers, as it taxes your scale knowledge skills more. You're very right that to make music you have to practice music. But I feel there's a continuum that runs all the way from genuine performance, right down to a highly artificial situation where a player is dealing with one thing in isolation, and there's typically a sweet spot that needs to be found somewhere on there. Possibly this is why you started this thread in the first place?

For example, I've been shedding a particular polyrhythm (groups of 4 triplet quavers) over 4/4, and trying to use it in improvising over a blues. I found that I had to break this down to practising just the polyrhythm with a simple pattern before taking it over the form and improvising a line with it - I was having to think about too many things at once!

So the question of "how to practice scales?" should really be formed as follows:

1. Why should I practice scales? What specific aspect of my playing am I looking to improve?
2. How can I practice scales in a manner that will improve this aspect?
3. Can I improve another specific aspect of my playing within the same exercise?
4. Am I already working this aspect with another exercise?
5. Which version works this aspect best?
6. Repeat 3-5 as often as you feel you can for one exercise.

This is why structuring practice time with some thought is important - you've gotta be aware of what you're trying to get out of an exercise, and tailor your practicing to that. So scales can be practiced with all these ideas we've mentioned, and which ones are focused on depends on the needs of the player. It might be a technical thing (get my fingers to stop flying off the fretboard when I'm string crossing), or a harmonic thing (superimposing Coltrane changes over a ii V I) or whatever.

The way I outlined sheds basic mechanical knowledge of the fingerboard within a single key, and rhythmic accuracy with various subdivisions. I should mention, that the basic exercise I presented can of course of be modified to make it cover more aspects - I often do it with changes of direction within a position, and changing position on the E A D and G strings. I would also say that it's a good idea to apply the same positions and rhythms to diatonic arpeggios, crossing between positions etc. However, it's usually a warm up for me to get the basic mechanics of the fingerboard refreshed before moving on to shed other aspects of my playing with different exercises (e.g. not starting from the root by playing over changes and avoiding the root, or focusing on simple harmonic material with lots of dynamic contrasts and phrasing).

[paul_c2]

Yeah, there's definitely a potential to efficiently structure practice time. I'll admit, I don't do enough, I play another instrument and do structure the practice time on this as best I can though. For the bass, I have tended to instead focus on actually playing pieces, and if there's something difficult, spend time on the difficult bits, working out fingerings, playing it much slower at first, then to a metronome at the right speed, then continuing at a faster speed - the idea being that if I can nail the difficult sections faster, then once slowed back to actual speed will make it easier still.

Scales are - and always will be - a bit abstract compared to actual pieces, but there is a vague link so they are vaguely useful. It does seem that the classical training (of other instruments) seem to like them though, maybe too much so?

For bass, probably just as important/more important is arpeggios. A lot of the time in pieces, arpeggios of a certain chord come up again and again.

[TKenrick]

[quote name='paul_c2' timestamp='1479296736' post='3175383']
Scales are - and always will be - a bit abstract compared to actual pieces, but there is a vague link so they are vaguely useful. It does seem that the classical training (of other instruments) seem to like them though, maybe too much so?

For bass, probably just as important/more important is arpeggios. A lot of the time in pieces, arpeggios of a certain chord come up again and again.
[/quote]

I totally agree with this - I find that placing too much emphasis on practising scales leads to vague, noodly scale-based playing. Once you understand how a scale is constructed and have the sound of it in your ear then I don't really see the point in playing it to death for technique's sake. Much better to play some music that stretches your technique [i]and[/i] gives you context for the scale/arpeggio that you're working on.