Scale Essentials – Multi Octave Scales
Simple Two-Octave Scales
To create a basic two-octave fingering for any scale we can simply take the one-octave fingerings we’ve already covered and switched our fretted finger at the octave to the same finger we used at the starting root note. We can then simply complete the scale with a two-string scale pattern.
Below we have a simple two-octave fingering of the 2nd finger C major scale:
This method can be applied to any of the three scale patterns. Below we have the C major 1st finger pattern:
Chaining Two-String Scales
By using the two string scales covered in the previous lesson we can generate scales over multiple octaves. We simply make the position shift at each octave in order to repeat and ‘chain’ the patterns together.
The below example features a C major 2nd Finger pattern on the A string:
We can expand on this process of chaining patterns to create a 3 octave G Major scale on a 4 string bass (if you have 24 frets!):
