Bass Guitar Scale - Major Pentatonic Bass Guitar Scale

The major pentatonic bass guitar scale is a stalwart of bass players everywhere. I’m sure that you’ve heard bass players using this bass guitar scale countless times. It is very commonly used in country music as well as a lot of pop music bass playing. I use this bass guitar scale often under major chords in any music genre.

To play the pentatonic major scale follow this simple formula. From the root note of the major scale from the key of the song  play the following notes: 1- 2 - 3 - 5 - 6. In the key of C this guitar scale for bass would be C - D - E - G - A. It’s the C major scale without the 4th and 7th notes. The following image shows you the major pentatonic bass scale.

bass guitar scale major pentatonic

Here is another way to play the same scale:

guitar bass scale major pentatonic

I find an interesting thing about the major pentatonic scale is that it ends up being the exact same notes as the relative minor pentatonic scale. In other words, the relative minor of C major is A minor. The C major pentatonic bass scale is the same notes as the A minor pentatonic bass scale. Read more about that in this post: Bass Guitar - Minor Pentatonic Scale