Have you ever learned a new scale on guitar, practiced it for 2-3 days
and then got bored and wanted to learn a new scale to play? If you said
yes, your situation is not at all uncommon. In fact, most guitarists
don't know what to do with new scales they learn on guitar and assume
that they are done learning a new scale after memorizing its notes and
briefly playing it on their instrument. Such an approach places severe
(and unnecessary) restrictions on your musical creativity by limiting
the ways in which you can actually use any new scale that you learn in
your guitar solos.
Fortunately, there is a better way to practice guitar that will help you
to get more out of the time you spend learning scales. The most
important thing you must keep in mind is the need to explore ALL the
creative possibilities any new scale has to offer before you abandon it
in search of the next scale to practice. When you get yourself to do
this, you will amaze yourself by how much more fun you will have when
practicing and how many more creative ideas you will be able to derive
from any scale you are working with.
In this article I will list for you 5 important things you must do after
you go through the initial step of memorizing the notes of a new scale.
These steps are critical for avoiding the frustrating situation
described above and for getting a lot more from every minute you spend
practicing guitar.
1. Don't Learn Scales At Random
There are so many scales that exist in music that it is critical for you
to get organized about which of them are most important for you to
learn and practice. To do that, make a list of all scales that are used
most often in your style of music and do NOT move on to learn lots of
other obscure and unusual scales until you have a very firm command of
the essential scales used in your style of guitar playing. This involves
not merely the ability to play the notes of the scales but also the
skill to use them in any musical context freely and expressively.
That being said, of course it can also be helpful to learn and study
other scales that may add an exotic or unusual sound to your guitar
playing, BUT you will only really benefit from this when two things are
in place:
1. You already have a very proven and effective system for learning
scales on guitar that allows you to easily learn any scale.
2. You have already spent enough time on the fundamental scales used in
your style of guitar playing to be ready to reap the benefits of
expanding your musical horizons by learning other scales.
If you are not sure of how to find the list of scales used in your style
of music, you can do so in one (or both) of the following ways: either
by asking a guitar teacher or a more accomplished musician to tell you
what these scales are, and/or by developing your ear training and music
theory knowledge to be able to hear what scales are used in your
favorite guitar solos.
2. Break Out Of "Box Patterns" And Master The Guitar Fretboard Fully
By far the most popular mistake the vast majority of guitarists make
when learning to play scales is only playing them in a single area of
the guitar. The most common example of this for blues/rock guitar
players involves playing the A minor pentatonic scale in the fifth
position on the fretboard (only) and completely neglecting to learn it
in other areas of the guitar. The result of this is similar to watching a
movie on TV and switching channels at the first commercial break to
start watching a different program, and without ever coming back to
finish the original movie continuing to switch channels to watch
something brand new as soon as another commercial comes.
In guitar playing world, doing this leads to never being able to truly
use the scales you have learned to their full potential in your music.
To overcome this VERY common problem, you must make time in your
practicing to learn to play every scale you want to master all over the
guitar. Fact is, you can write much more music (much more expressively)
with only a single scale that you know on the guitar inside and out than
you can with dozens of scales that you can only play in one area of the
guitar.
3. Analyze Guitar Solos That Inspire You And Focus On The Scales Being Used
On top of the regular guitar practice sessions you do to learn to play
scales, it is important to spend some time observing how the guitar
players you admire actually use scales in the music you listen to.
Depending on your level of skill with ear training, you can either do
this by using tab of solos (that you are SURE is accurate) or (ideally)
transcribing the solos yourself by ear and analyzing your own
transcriptions.
In addition to being a great exercise for general ear training, doing
this will enable you to see how the scales you are practicing can be
(and are) used to create melodies and licks that combine together to
make guitar solos.
Even if you have already made a list of scales that are used in your
style of music, you will learn a great amount by doing this step anyway.
4. Practice Playing Scales On Each Single String Of The Guitar In Addition To "Scale Shapes"
Most musicians are comfortable with playing scales vertically (from the
low E string to the high E string). Even though this is an important
foundation of all playing of scales on guitar, it is equally important
to learn how the scales are laid out on each of the 6 strings of the
guitar from the first fret to the last fret (by playing side to side
across the guitar neck). Training in this way will help to picture scale
shapes in every position of the guitar more easily, even if you are
starting to play a phrase from a string other than the 6th string.
5. Avoid The CAGED System
Even though this system of playing guitar scales is quite popular among
some guitar teachers, it is NEVER used by world class virtuoso guitar
players because it places a huge number of restrictions on your ability
to freely use scales in music.
Without writing a 100 page dissertation about all the flaws of the CAGED
system, its single biggest weakness is that it is not based on how
scales ACTUALLY work in music for all instruments and is instead
intended to create a shortcut only for guitar players by exploiting
several isolated and completely illogical visual shapes on guitar (that,
by the way, only work in standard tuning' and become totally useless in
drop tunings or open tunings). The result of such a crippling system is
that guitarists remain forever restricted in the way they can use
scales musically and cannot play scales all over the guitar on the same
level as other musicians who have a real and complete understanding of
how scales are supposed to work in music.
Fortunately, the complete and most efficient ways of practicing scales
on guitar are not any more difficult to learn and understand than the
(much flawed) CAGED system.
What should you do now?
Although there are many ways to go about learning to play scales on
guitar, some approaches are, without a doubt, more effective than
others. If you have been less than satisfied with the results you have
seen so far in your guitar playing from practicing scales, consider
changing your approach by following the advice in this article as well
as the video mentioned above about
learning scales on guitar.
About The Author:
Mike Philippov is a guitar instructional author, professional
guitar player and composer. He writes articles about the best ways to
practice guitar that are studied by many musicians worldwide. To get
more help with becoming a better guitar player, visit his website: http://PracticeGuitarNow.com.
