Once you've begun to get familiar with the note names, it's time to start learning some bass scales. Learning bass scales is a great way to get comfortable on your instrument, and to introduce yourself to some basic music theory. It will also help you come up with bass lines and improvise.
What is a Scale?
A scale, put pure and simple, is a group of notes. As you may already be aware, there are only 12 notes in the octave. If you choose some subset of those 12 notes and play them in order, you've played a scale. Of course, certain sets of notes sound better and are more commonly used than others.
Most traditional scales have seven notes. There are also pentatonic scales, which have five notes, and other unique scales with different numbers, such as six or eight. One scale even has all 12.