Most Important And Practical Guitar Scales To Learn

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Rather than aimlessly practicing guitar scales, you want to
  become laser focused. What are the most important and practical
  guitar scales to learn? What guitar scales you need to learn, in
  order to play the style of music that you love.

  A major reason why many guitarists never master guitar scales is
  that they try to learn too many at once. If you want to develop
  top-class guitar scales and improvisation skills, then you will
  need to learn and master certain scales. In fact, you will have
  to know your scales so well that you "own them". Until you "own"
  your scales you can't use them effectively.

  Learning scales and deciding on what are the most important and
  practical guitar scales to learn seems a mind-boggling task. No
  doubt, you have heard people say: the more scales you know, the
  wider variety of songs you will be able to play and enjoy.

  Scales mastery is the combination of several "micro-skills":
  (a) learn the names of the notes in the scale,
  (b) know their scale step numbers,
  (c) study the unique harmony created from that scale,
  (d) know the names of the notes over the entire fretboard
  (e) learn the scale in all twelve keys.

  Mastery of scales, modes, and improvisation is not difficult,
  once you break these complex subjects down to small pieces.

  First decide what music you want to play: rock, jazz, country,
  bluegrass, metal, each style of music has certain preferred
  scales associated with that music.

  Most important and practical guitar scales to learn for rock
  music: minor pentatonic, blues scale.

  Most important and practical guitar scales to learn for country
  music: major pentatonic scale, blues scale.

  Most important and practical guitar scales to learn for bluegrass
  music: major pentatonic scale, major diatonic scale,

  Most important and practical guitar scales to learn for jazz
  music: major diatonic scale and it's modes, harmonic minor scale
  and it's modes, minor pentatonic scale, blues scale, major
  pentatonic, whole tone scale, chromatic scale.

  Scales create patterns on the fretboard which players visualize
  and memorize. The important thing to remember is to learn the
  notes on your guitar fretboard, so you are not just playing a
  pattern, that's the key to good guitar playing, knowing the names
  of the notes over the entire fingerboard!

  Good knowledge of the fretboard will enable you to: improvise
  better, learn songs quicker, learn more chords and scales, read
  music and most importantly it'll let you be able to create your
  own music not merely copy someone else.

  I definitely recommend memorizing or becoming familiar with the
  fretboard.  If you memorize the notes on the fretboard, you will
  be able to connect scales and locate the root of keys that you
  are playing in while soloing, easily.  Especially if you want to
  know that scale over the entire fretboard AND be able to
  improvise fluently with it.

  Many guitarists main focus is entirely on the physical aspect of
  playing scales the musician/guitarist understands the intellectual aspect     of learning scales.

  The ability to use artfully the unique "colors" of each different
  note in a scale.  The ability to play instantly and effortlessly
  any scale in any key, anywhere on the fretboard.  The ability to
  know instantly and effortlessly what scale and mode to use on any
  chord.

  Practicing guitar music scales is one of the key elements to
  learning the basics of guitar.

  Once you decide on the most important and practical guitar scales to      
learn for your music you will be on your way to successful guitar music    
playing in no time.

Playing the guitar - Introduction

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Once you know a little bit about how music is structured and where to find it on the fretboard, you must get those strings vibrating to make music. This, of course, means coordinating both hands. The fretboard hand must be holding the strings down firmly to allow them to vibrate, and the picking hand must attack the strings cleanly also, to prevent unwanted notes from clouding the sound. This may take a little while to achieve, and practice is the only way to get there. Your finger tips will hurt for a little while, as your calluses build up, but soon enough you won't feel any discomfort. Make sure you play at least a little each day to maintain the insensitivity.

The fretboard hand will also need some time to feel comfortable with some of the chord shapes, some of which require spreading the fingers out quite a bit, and changing from one chord to another seems impossible when you first start playing. Don't be discouraged, practice will make perfect.

To get the best leverage, power and control over the fretboard hand, try to make it a habit early on to keep the thumb as close to the middle of the back of the neck as possible. It should line up with your index finger, as if you're taking the neck's pulse. It's a firm but relaxed pressure. You'll find if you keep the thumb and index finger lined up, the other three fingers will be able to work independently. As your hand moves, this thumb/index combo moves with it.
Your elbow should be dropped, everything should be relaxed. It's very easy for the shoulders to tense up ... try your best to keep everything relaxed and to make it habit.

Strings can be manipulated in countless ways to extract the music: they can be pushed sideways to 'bend' notes up in pitch; they can be 'hammered on' and 'pulled off' to get from one note to another; strummed; plucked and picked; they can be muted to muffle the ringing; they can be slid up or down, to get from one note to another; they can be jiggled back and forth to make the note wobble in pitch, a technique called 'vibrato'; they can be slid upon using a metal tube, known as 'slide guitar' (my specialty); they can be lightly touched at specific points to create 'harmonics' ... the list goes on. These various techniques, together, create a player's distinctive trademark 'sound'. They all come with time — lots of it — but eventually become second nature.

This section of the site takes a good look at all the main techniques. Many of them are very intuitive and don't really require huge amounts of skill to perfect; others are much trickier and will take longer to master. All will require constant practice. Don't feel that you need to learn everything I show in the movies. They're not lessons so much as demos. I did, however, track all the fretboard action on the animated virtual fretboard just in case something does jump out at you that you want to learn. There are many aspects to playing the guitar, but the main thing to remember is to HAVE FUN.