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What Guitar Scales Should You Study?
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What are scales? What guitar scales should you study? If
you are
new to the guitar, and new to music, you are probably not even
quite sure exactly what a scale actually is, which certainly adds
to the
aura of mystery that begins to surround the subject.
Learning and
practicing scales can become an obsession for many
guitarists. Scales can
"free your fingers and freeze your brain",
if you're not careful. Always
keep in mind that scales are part
of the preparation work we do so we will
be free to express
ourselves musically.
Scales are to the musician
what skipping a rope is to a boxer,
it's part of the preparation work.
Scales are simply a means to
an end. What guitar scales should you study
depends on the type
of music you want to play. It's far better to master a
small
number of scales and be able to apply these scales to many
musical settings.
The first thing to understand is that there are
hundreds of
scales, to give you an idea of what you're up against, here's
a
short sample of some of the names of scales starting with the
letter
"L".
Leading Whole Tone
Locrian
Locrian #2
Locrian
b4
Locrian Flat 4
Locrian Minor
Locrian natural 2
Locrian
Natural 2nd
Locrian Sharp 2nd
Lydian
Lydian 7b
Lydian
Augmented
Lydian b7
Lydian contracted
Lydian diminished
Lydian Diminished 1
Lydian Diminished 2
Lydian Dominant
Lydian
dominant scale4
Lydian Minor
Lydian Sharp 2nd
Keep in
mind, this is only a sample from a very long list of
scales. Each one of
these scales can be played in 12 different
keys as guitarists we have the
added issue of multiple fingering
options on the guitar fretboard. What
guitar scales should we
study is a very important question, to be honest
five minutes
thought deciding what to practice is much better that five
hours
of haphazard practice.
Scales are the building blocks from
which all music is created. we use scales to create melodies (horizontal
structures), chords (vertical structures), arpeggios (oblique
structures).
Scales in themselves are not music they are
simply our musical
alphabet. In the hands of a skilled musician they can
create
music.
Three things to consider when learning
scales:
(a) there's the intellectual aspect, data memory
information
i.e., the names of the notes and their scale step
numbers.
(b) applying this knowledge to the guitar, in order to do
this
successfully we need to be able to identify all the notes on the
fingerboard by name, not simply by a fingering pattern.
(c) motor skill
training i.e., speed is a byproduct of accuracy,
with the right amount of
accurate repetitions, scales will be
stored in the brain as a reflex
function, training very slowly to
avoid mistakes.
Where to
start:
The first scale guitar players should study would be the
minor
pentatonic scale. the minor pentatonic scale is a five note
scale, (penta = five) found throughout the world.
Example of the minor pentatonic scale in the key of A would
be:
A - C - D - E - G
The second scale guitar players should
study would be the blues
scale. the blues scale is one of the most
frequently used scales.
It is also important because it is the first real
scale of
American origin.
The blues scale is a six note scale, one
way of thinking of this
scale would be to treat the blues scale as a minor pentatonic
scale
with a flattened 5th.
Example of the Blues scale in the key of A would
be:
A - C - D - Eb - E -
G
The third scale guitar players should
study would be the major
pentatonic scale. The major pentatonic scale is another five
note
scale.
Example of the major pentatonic scale in the key
of A would be:
A - B - C# - E - F#
It is thought that the
pentatonic scales represent early stages
of musical development, because it
is found, in different forms,
in most of the world's music. These two
pentatonic scales
together with the blues scale are used to create riffs,
licks and
solos on many popular recordings.
What guitar scales
should you study is an important question, you can
save a lot of time by
learning these three scales first. Good luck finding which scales that are
right for your music.
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