Electric Bass: Eb Spanish Over the Changes

Eb Spanish runs 7 notes to the octave, laid out here on EADG with every Eb flagged. Mid-chorus the pattern is not what you need; where the root is when the chord changes underneath you is.

Fiery and exotic — the b2 presses against the root while the major 3rd keeps it from sounding plainly minor. Flamenco heat with a Middle-Eastern edge: dramatic, urgent, and passionate.

Heard in: Flamenco and Spanish classical guitar, klezmer and "Hava Nagila", Arabic and Jewish liturgical music, metal riffs, and the V chord of harmonic minor.

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.