C Melodic Minor — Bass (6-String)

The C Melodic Minor scale runs 7 notes per octave in the common family. Below it sits on the Bass (6-String)'s BEADGC strings with every root marked, because a bassist reads a scale map as a set of targets around the root, not a row of dots.

Minor at the bottom, major at the top — the b3 keeps it minor while the natural 6 and 7 lift the upper half into a smooth climb home. Bittersweet rather than dark, with a polished, modern-jazz sheen.

Heard in: Jazz lines over minor and altered chords, film scoring, and classical melodies rising to the tonic — Bach, Mozart, and bebop alike.

In fourths tuning every pattern is movable: learn the shape once, one finger per fret, and it works from any root on the BEADGC neck. With the low B and high C in the tuning, the same fingering covers more range before your hand ever shifts.

Walk it slowly against the audio, land each root on a downbeat, then take it to the progressions in C and let the scale turn into lines.