Beginner Guitar scales and what you should know.

Want to learn more about beginner guitar scales?

So you’re sick and tired of the frustration and confusion?

You’ve tried everything. 

Practicing scales relentlessly hour after hour until it feels like your fingers will drop off.

Learning more scales, more techniques even buying more gear (fun but not helpful).

But no matter what you do it feels like progress is coming like a turtle walking on peanut butter (thick peanut butter).

And boom! You’re in a never-ending battle of technique vs you, and guess who is winning?

We’ve all been there …

And I’m sure you have heard this advice a million times: “practice makes perfect”.

So what the heck do we do?

Learning Guitar scales: traps to avoid

News flash: It’s not what we’re doing it’s what we’re focusing on!

You see it’s not the practicing that’s the problem it’s the way we’re practicing.

Above all, we need to be acutely aware of the “two-way street” bind between technical accomplishment and what we are hearing in our head.

What we ‘hear” is a function of what we practice and what we play is a function of what we hear.

In other words, if all we practice are scales all we will hear are scales therefore when it comes to playing a solo it will most likely sound like an exercise.

Wham! Scales are not music

There’s the key right there …

Scales in themselves are not music.

Now for a lot of people that concept will hit them like a ton of bricks.

Heavy stuff, I know but that’s the truth.

However, it’s important to get your ears pinned on straight before going any further

The language of music, the music of language

Continuing the music, language analogy the key to playing meaningful music/solos is to:

• select the correct alphabet for the music you are playing e.g., blues, country, jazz, etc.,

• use the rhythm of words for phrasing 

Read on to find how we do this …

What scales are

Scales can be referred to by many different terms: Pitch-scales, modes, etc., and can have from two to twelve tones or more.

For our discussion on beginner guitar scales, a scale is any pre-determined restricted set of notes which chords (vertical forms) and melodic combinations (horizontal) can be chosen.

Essentially, scales are our musical alphabet.

Can this really be true?

Sure thing!

So what am I talking about?

If you think of music as a language – which it is!

Then single notes are the letters of our alphabet.

Chords are the words.

And chord progressions are our sentences.

Let’s get this show on the road

Right then, as you see from the above analogy just simply running up and down scales all over the fretboard like a bee in a bottle would be like a person reciting the alphabet as fast as possible.

The result would be jibberish.

In the hands of an experienced musician, scales can become music, it’s our job to learn how to manipulate the musical raw materials and turn it into music that communicates.

Now, would be a good time to take a break and have a listen to exactly what I mean,

For those jazz fans amongst us check out Bill Evans & Jim Hall Duo – Romain

Not into jazz? how about Eric Clapton’s version of Danny Boy

Both these players know lots of scales and both can play fast, but what did they do?

They responded and reacted to the musical setting and communicated their ideas clearly to the listener

In the same way as a good writer or speaker does.

Beginner Guitar Scales: The basics

Imagine for a moment that you were only allowed to learn one scale on guitar.

Yep, just one. Which scale would you choose?

But, won’t I have to learn heaps of scales and modes patterns all over the guitar and lots of difficult theoretical concepts to go with it? I hear you say.

No, just one.

Can you guess which one?

Tell me which one I must know!

Bear with me, because now I’m going to show you how to use one scale pattern that actually will have two functions.

It’s called the pentatonic scale.

What is a pentatonic scale?

The pentatonic scale is a five-note scale – Penta meaning five.

But there’s one small catch.

Technically speaking any five-note scale could be called pentatonic, consequently, how are we going to know which notes to play in our scale?

The Pentatonic scale

The pentatonic scale we will use is the minor pentatonic scale that will also contain the same notes as the major pentatonic scale.

And the best part?

We won’t have to get tangled up in a whole lot of stuff we won’t need at this stage. So we can concentrate on playing music not doing a NASA project.

And it all boils down to this …

There is a relationship between major and minor scales.

To understand how this works take a look at the circle of fifths image below.

The letters around the outer circle represent the Major scale whilst the letters in the inner circle identify the relative minor to each major scale.

So what we can see from this diagram is that the relative minor for C major is A minor.

Now, just when this is looking pretty simple.

Be Warned:

There are different types of minor scales.

Let’s see … there’s the natural minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor and the list goes on.

The particular minor scale we are interested in is the natural minor scale aka the Aeolian mode.

So let’s investigate how these two scales are related.

The notes of the C Major scale are: C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C

and the notes of the A natural minor scale are:

A- B – C – D- E – F – G – A

Did you notice both scales contain the same notes only in a different sequence?

“Playing scales is like a boxer skipping rope or punching a bag. It’s not the thing in itself; it’s preparatory to the activity” – Barney Kessel

Now, this is the part where we move all of this over to the guitar fretboard and you will soon see how easy it is learning the basic guitar scales.

The world-famous pentatonic scale pattern

Some readers will already know this scale shape, you might not know it by name but chances are you have played this pattern.

Similarly, you may well have played the following pattern and not been aware of the subtle difference.

Here is the C Major pentatonic scale pattern

So what’s the secret?

Is there a secret?

When the scale patterns are presented as I have above it’s not that obvious that they are exactly the same notes and patterns on the fingerboard.

That’s because I have illustrated the scales by identifying their root notes, the root notes are the clear circled notes.

Therefore the fingerboard patterns look slightly different.

Now, take a look at the following patterns where I have illustrated the complete set of possible notes that lay comfortably under the guitarist’s fingers without stretching or changing position.

Notice how both patterns are identical?

Major or Minor pentatonic which one?

If both major and minor pentatonic scales have the same notes and fingering patterns how do we know which one to play and does it matter?

The first thing to do is to listen to the song because the style of music you are playing will give you an indication as to which pentatonic scale to play.

Here’s how it goes:

If the style of the song is a blues, rock or melancholy style – go with the minor pentatonic scale.

– Mike Hayes

If it’s a country, pop or folk song chances are the major pentatonic will be a good fit.

Mike Hayes

These are general guidelines that you can use to get you started however you have to LISTEN to the song and get a feel for the emotional response the artist is going for.

In other words, it all depends on the song.

That’s what I mean by selecting the correct music/language alphabet for the project.

If you get that wrong it would be just like speaking Polish to an Eskimo.

In conclusion here’s an example of how that would work in the real world.

First example – you’re playing a rock song in the key of A

Here’s where you would go

The next song you are playing is a country song also in the key of A here’s what I’d do

In conclusion, it’s the same pattern that just shifted down three frets.

The important thing is to be aware of where each scale pattern takes its name from.

They are the notes in a clear circle, I call these keynotes.

Learning the beginner guitar scales

Right at the beginning, I said to Stop! Playing scales

What I meant was to stop mindlessly running up and down scales.

Scales can free your fingers and freeze your brain

– Don Burrows

It’s the spaces between the notes that make the music.

When guys like BB King play they sound like they mean every note when most guitar players play it sounds like a clarinet exercise.

The key here is phrasing.

For instance, if you were trying to have a conversation with someone and they wouldn’t stop talking there wouldn’t be any communication happening.

Similarly, if a guitarist just keeps playing an endless stream of notes without spaces it won’t communicate anything.

Beginner Guitar Scales bonus tip: Mary Had A Little Lamb

Next time you are playing a solo try thinking of the tune Mary Had A Little Lamb.

You are not trying to play that tune (although that is a great exercise in itself), what we are setting out to do is use the phrasing (spaces) of Mary Had A Little Lamb.

In other words, you are playing the scale that is appropriate for the style of music you are performing and you’re thinking of the phrasing of Mary Had A Little Lamb.

After that try other simple tunes you know, remember we’re just using the phrasing of these tunes as starting points for our own solos.

And that’s just the beginning …

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