Electric Bass: Bb Minor Pentatonic Over the Changes

Bb Minor Pentatonic runs 5 notes to the octave, laid out here on EADG with every Bb flagged. Mid-chorus the pattern is not what you need; where the root is when the chord changes underneath you is.

Gritty, bluesy, and direct — five notes with no half steps, so each one lands with attitude over a minor or dominant chord. The sound of rock and blues lead playing.

Heard in: Blues, rock, hard rock, metal, funk, and soul solos — the first scale most lead players learn and the one they never leave.

The electric bass can hold a note long enough for it to be heard as a choice rather than a step, so a scale here is read for its strong tones first and its passing tones second.

Play it slowly against the audio until it stops being a shape, then put it over two bars of a form and let the chord tones decide which of the notes you actually keep.