Scales…yawn
Talking to students about scales puts about as big an enthusiastic smile on their faces as the prospect of going to the dentist for root canal therapy. In other words, enthusiasm levels = zero.
I must confess that I too find them as boring as watching paint dry, but this doesn’t negate their importance in the pursuit of guitar playing excellence. They are without question the foundations upon which your guitar playing house will be built. Any house that has weak foundations will eventually crumble and fall.
The guitar student who wishes to become a master shredder will skip over this part of his lessons at his or her peril, as that gaping hole will open up over time and leave you completely exposed.
A study of scales is beyond the scope of this article, but I just want to quickly point out where they come into play and their real use to you, the budding guitar god.
First up, your scales will help your familiarity with the neck of the guitar, or help you know where your notes are. A good knowledge of scales means you’ll never be lost anywhere on the neck of the instrument. All scales can and should be practised over two and in some cases three octaves.
Following on from the above idea, they are great finger exercises when practised in broken intervals. Eg; instead of just do re mi fa so la ti do, try do mi re fa mi so fa la so ti la do. Also run them backwards as well as forwards and find other combinations.
Fluent position switching is attained through practising your scales over two or three octaves as well.
Your scales are also your basis for further study of melody and harmony, in other words, composition/ song writing. One of my favourite keyboard players, Rick Wakeman, once said in an interview that his father sent him to music school explaining that this would form his musical vocabulary because a writer is only as good as the words he knows.
So overall, a good solid knowledge of scales and their application will make you a more solid, sure footed and creative musician.
See? It’s not all bad.
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February 23rd, 2006 at 3:46 am
Nice one, Mark! I was just discussing this very point with a fellow teacher this afternoon. We were exchanging ideas on ways to get our students more enthusiastic about the necessity of scale practice. I’ll email him this page, I think you cracked that particular nut. Well done.
Regards, Dave
February 23rd, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Thanks for the positive feedback Dave. I’m glad that this article was of help to you. I no longer have the time to teach because of band commitments etc. But I do have time to post articles here, and if they help, I’m chuffed.
A professional aquaintance of mine actually did his thesis on scales, and also tried to find some new ones. Now that’s keen.
November 13th, 2006 at 9:48 am
[...] Ok. Generally the 3rd is not strongly, if at all, emphasised in a 12 bar progression. So we just use our minor pentatonic, BUT in addition to that we are going to throw in the flat 5 or B flat,(fig.1). A word of warning. Don’t ride the B flat or you’ll get a major “eeeewwwww”. Just use it as a passing note. A passing note is not emphasised or sustained. It’s just briefly touched on while going somewhere else. When you play the “Blues Scale”, you should hear what I mean. So go give it a try. So did that sound way cool, or what? Stay tuned for more ways to bend the “Pentabeast” out of shape in future articles.I just want to make a note here about the diagrams I use and why. As this is about soloing, I just give you the notes on a neck diagram because the order you play them in is entirely up to you. It’s your solo and it’s a personal thing. I’ve already written about practicing scales and given some useful tips on it in other articles. However, if you’d really like anything written out in musical notation then let me know. [...]