Black Metal Bass Scales

本站添加: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]Today we're talking about black metal bass scales. So, here are some of the bass scales that I've used the most when uh recording and writing music. And if you're interested in the bass tone, you can get it from my Patreon. The first scale we're going to go over is the E minor scale. [music] Now the E minor scale is critical to black metal guitar playing because for example if a guitar player is playing bar chords or minor diads this scale can work on top of those chords. So very quickly the strings and the frets on the E string it's open 2 three. [music] You repeat the same for the A string.

[00:00:44]Then O2 on D. And then you go back down the scale.

[00:00:55][music] Now, the cool thing about this scale is that you can move it up and down the fretboard and still play the same shape.

[00:01:00]And if you were to take that E minor scale five frets up, then you'll be playing an A minor scale. [music] It follows the same pattern. And I'll go over the frets. It'll be 578 on E and A, [music] then five and seven on the D string.

[00:01:25]So, for example, if the guitar chord was playing A flat, for example, all you need to do is play that A minor shape one fret down. And it would be the same thing if the root note starts on the A string or have a position four style minor bar chord for example because an E minor scale would be played like this.

[00:01:49]It's the exact same finger pattern and fret distance as the A minor scale except you just start on the E note on the A string being the seventh fret. So it'll be 7 9 10 twice round on A and D [music] then 7 9.

[00:02:11]And these are really cool for coming up with melodic lines. So say if like a guitar is just tremolo picking for like four bars, you can just create like a little melody with this scale.

[00:02:26]something like that maybe.

[00:02:32]And there's another example as well. So it's a very versatile scale. And if you want to make things a little bit more tense and dark, you can use this scale next. So what I'm going to show you now is the E frigian mode. The only difference between the E frigian and a E natural minor scale is that instead of playing a natural second, you play a flat second. So the fretting is a little bit different. So starting on the A string, it'll be 7 8 10 [music] then 7 9 10 then 7 9. And here's the full scale.

[00:03:04][music] And you can use the frigian mode over minor bar chords for example. And you can also use them for single note riffs as well.

[00:03:21]Something like that. And then to keep up the darker tonality, we can also use the harmonic minor scale. [music] So that's the E harmonic minor. The only difference between the harmonic minor and the natural minor is the seventh note.

[00:03:42][music] Instead of it being seven and 9 on the G string, it's 8 and 9. So it be 7 9 10 twice round on A and D.

[00:03:52]then eight and nine. [music] And this is another cool scale for building melodies.

[00:04:04][music] So again, you can mess around with this scale when guitars are playing minor chords. Another more riffbased scale is the frigian dominant scale. So that would be 7 8 on the A string.

[00:04:23]Then 6 7 9 10 on the D string.

[00:04:31]Then it'll be seven and nine on the G string.

[00:04:37][music] Another cool scale for riffs.

[00:04:44][music] Now, we're going to talk about the diminish scale. Again, it's more riff based and can work with some minor chords. You'll just have to be quite careful with the notes you pick, unless you want it to sound mega dissonant. But this one's a little bit awkward, but there is a pattern. It's one fret up, two frets up, then one fret up, and you go diagonally up trion. So starting on A on the E string you've got 5 6 8 9 and then on the A string it'll be 6 7 9 10 and on the D string it'll be 7 8 10 11 and then the G string [music] 8 9 11 12.

[00:05:32][music] So yeah, a pretty weird sounding scale.

[00:05:37]And you can also just play this with the minor thirds as well to get a bit more death metal in the um in the playing. Even though we've mainly discussed minor tonalities, major scales also play an important part as well. If for example a chord progression is E minor, then D major, then C, it's important to learn the major scales as well. So this one's G major. It'll be 357 on the E string.

[00:06:06]Same again on the A.

[00:06:09]Then on D and G, it'll be four, five, seven. [music] And again, that would be cool for making melodic lines when the guitars are switching from the minor chords to the major chords as well. And the final scale that we're going to talk about is the A blues scale. So, it's going to be five and eight on the E string, 567 on A, 5, seven on D, 5, 7, 8 on G.

[00:06:42][music] Now again with this scale you can use it for minor chord playing creating melodic lines [music] because you have that [music] trionee there for extra tension.

[00:07:04]And you can even mix that up with the natural minor scale as well to create more intricate bass parts.

[00:07:12][music] And then you could throw like a harmonic minor note in there as well.

[00:07:16]All of these scales you can follow the same position, the same hand movements anywhere across the neck. And as long as you know the root notes, the starting notes, you can play any minor scale and any major scale. So when you're writing, if you're messing around with different keys and chords, this is where it's going to be extremely helpful.