3 Blistering Pentatonic Licks [Play MUSIC - Not 'Shapes']

►► FREE: Get the tabs, notation and practice tracks for all three blistering bass licks in this lesson → https://becomeabassist.com/3-blistering-pentatonic-bass-licks

I know I’m guilty of this…

I’ll be teaching some concept or idea and say something like, “It’s just the pentatonic scale…” and then play something that I think sounds really cool.

But then some students will try to do the same thing and play the pentatonic shape and it just ends up sounding…

Un-musical…

‘Scaley’...

Robotic…

Maybe this has even happened to you - where you’re playing the ‘right’ thing, but it doesn’t sound nearly half as cool as what it’s ‘supposed’ to sound like. Now there’s a very specific reason this happens, but the important part is that:

That changes TODAY

Today, I want to show you how you can actually use the pentatonic scale to make music - rather than it just ending up sounding like note salad.

How?

By giving you 3 specific pieces of musical language (that just happen to use notes from the minor pentatonic scale). It’s about how the notes are put together in a phrase rather than the specific notes or shapes.

It’d be the difference between giving you a few ultra-useful phrases in Italian vs. giving you the Italian dictionary. One is going to be a lot more useful than the other.

So if you want to use scales and shapes that you probably already know, but make them at least 50% more musical, then check out today’s lesson.

One of my favorite things about learning musical language vs. just learning scale shapes or music theory is that you can tweak the phrases in an almost infinite number of ways.

And in fact, you absolutely should make your own ‘versions’ of these phrases, add your own flavors and spices and tweak them to how you like them.

That’s probably the most important part of the process I show you in the video because that’s how you can start to develop your own ‘voice’ and get a sense for how you want to sound.

And if that’s something you want to do for yourself, then just head to this page:

https://becomeabassist.com/3-blistering-pentatonic-bass-licks

Fill out the form on that page and you can download all of the different ways of playing all 3 licks in tab and notation form as well as the practice tracks from the video.

So have some fun with these, good luck and happy playing!

Cheers,

Luke

Chapters

0:00 Intro
1:36 Blistering Lick #1
6:08 Blistering Lick #2
10:01 Blistering Lick #3
13:56 Using Language To Create MUSIC

#pentatonicscale #becomeabassist #basslicks