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Easy Beginner Guitar Lessons – How to Turn scales into music by using sequencing

By Mike Hayes | July 28, 2009

Guitar players usually practice scales by playing them as fast as
they can up and down the fretboard; unfortunately that’s all they seem to do!

Of course scales by themselves are not music; however in the hands of a skillful musician they can be used to create music. So how do we make the transition from robot style, brain dead scale practice?

A really neat way to turn scales into interesting music is via a
technique called ’sequencing’; essentially instead of simply
playing ascending and descending scales the scale weaves in and
out with many unexpected surprises for the listener.

Let’s take a moment to think about what normally happens when we
play a scale … regardless of whether we are playing a scale
ascending or descending the two notes that have the most impact
on our ear are the first and last notes; all the other notes tend
to blur together as we play the scale at lightening speed.

The problem is that both the first and last note are exactly the same note, just one octave apart! Can you see the problem?

 It’s impossible to play creative music using scales as a resource if we’re only paying attention to two notes of the same name.

Now for an entirely different approach …

Scale sequencing : the concept is to pick a number, I’ll use the
number four in this example, you could choose any number you
wish.

Here’s one way we could apply the technique of sequencing to our three note per string scale system in the key of C major.

Starting from the sixth string our three note per string scale
system would be played as follows …

string six – F,G,A
string five – B,C,D
string four – E,F,G
string three – A,B,C
string two – D,E,F
string one – G,A,B

At this point our scale is 100% correct and 100% predictable; we
need to add the element of surprise to create interesting music;
this is where sequencing can help.

Here’s the same scale with sequencing using the number ‘four’ as
our sequence code number.

F,G,A,[B],A,G / F,G,A,B,C,D /

B,C,D,[E],D,C /B,C,D,E,F,G /

E,F,G,[A],G,F / E,F,G,A,B,C /

A,B,C,[D],C,B / A,B,C,D,E,F /

D,E,F,[G],F,E / D,E,F,G,A,B /

What I did here was to play the scale ascending; when I reached
the fourth note I played the scale descending creating a
surprise, then I proceeded to play the scale ascending commencing
from my original starting note.

Compare this scale sequence with the standard way of playing the scale.

F,G,A / B,C,D / E,F,G / A,B,C / D,E,F / G,A,B

I encourage you to use this technique when you practice the
guitar.

And now I’d like to invite you to get free access to my “How To
Remember 1,000 Songs” eCourse. You can download the course for
free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System

http://www.GuitarCoaching.com
http://AdvancingGuitaristProgram.com

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