Lead bass playing and soloing makes use of bass scale fingerings and patterns that are moveable on the fretboard. Often times shifting positions from one fret on the open position of the fretboard to a higher fret towards the pickups is a method of playing bass in a lead style manner for rock bass and other styles. Bass software and any learning method that you can use to help you with this will take you further in your quest of real bass playing.

Bass soloing and improvising with moveable scale patterns is all about a level of comfort and ease with which you have as a bass player in lead playing over your bass neck. Understanding the concepts behind the scales and how you move them around the fretboard is an essential element to gaining the fretboard freedom to play from low frets to high frets.

No matter what level bass player you are, you will more thoroughly benefit in your lead playing by gaining a practical and useable knowledge of scale mastery. Although the more experience, skill level and musical knowing that you you already have leaves this a fundamental idea that you already understand but would most likely like to have a more complete and useable grasp of in order to break through your current barrier to fully enjoying your instrument.

The type or makeup of the actual scale that you play and the scale pattern itself are two different things. That is why sometimes bass players become confused as to what is being taught. The musical makeup of a scale is generally 5 notes or 7 notes. There are step pattens used to make up the actual scale, but that is music theory which is another subject as well. By identifying where the actual scale notes are in relation to the various fret locations as they are mapped out on the fretboard is what scale patterns means when you see that term. For the beginner bass player the whole concept of understanding, memorizing and utilizing various patterns in bass playing is absolutely necessary in order to save time, money and energy in learning the instrument. But the intermediate to advanced player recognizes this already. They feel that the quick learning methods they scan the internet for are general hype and content copying to make a quick buck on any bass subject with some throw together lessons promoted as the great thing since sliced bread.

It is possible to really obtain a quality musical education with your bass fretboard including the immense subject of bass scale patterns that is so commonly thrown around on daily pop up sites and articles trying to sell the next cheap e-book or free lessons to sell a music cd or get some advertising. Use your judgment and you will find a real bass education with some simple judgment and discrimination of the online literature you peruse.