Have no doubt that a little scale knowledge goes a long way. They provide you with a roadmap of the guitar fret board. The better you know your scales the better you know your way around, it is truly that simple. With so many scales to choose from it is difficult to know where to start learning basic scales. The standard tuning for guitar makes particular scales very readily available to the learning guitarist.
The guide to the guitar fret board lies in having some basic scale knowledge. You do not ever need to know every scale to be a great guitarist. Many blues guitarist never stray beyond using one scale pattern. Nearly all of modern rock is a blend of the blues scale and the major scale. Therefore, that is where we will begin, with the major scale and its subdivisions.
The major scale is a seven note grouping that has a warm, pleasant sounding interval pattern. After playing it just a couple of times, you will be able to hear the familiar friendliness of the major scale. The most important thing about learning a scale is that you want to make sure to be learning stuff you can apply. The G major scale is the most applicable guitar scale on the guitar.
The notes of the G major scale are G, A, B, C, D, E, F#. These seven notes alone make up the G major scale. Seems simple, because the basics are and they will take you a long way. Now look at the guitar. The six strings from lowest pitch to highest are: E, A, D, G, B, and E. It’s easy to see that all of these notes are found in the G major scale. That is what makes the G major scale so finger friendly on guitar. However, at this point it already gets easier. Those notes of the open strings make up one of the most useful scales of all, the minor pentatonic. This is THE BLUES SCALE. The E minor pentatonic blues scale to be exact and it is the most related subdivision of the G major family.
The E minor pentatonic blues scale is the easiest scale of them all. We have established that the notes of the open strings from lowest to highest are E, A, D, G, B, and E. Play these notes in a direct ascending order: E, G, A, B, D, and E again. The scale is named E minor pentatonic because it starts on an E note and contains five different notes. When you play the notes, you can do so horizontally up and down one string or vertically just playing two notes on each string before skipping to the next string. It is very important to learn it both ways if you want to be able to play in more than one direction. The fret numbers for the E string horizontally go 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 12. Once you reach the 12th fret, you are back to E and the scale repeats. This is also true for all the other strings, notes repeat 12 frets higher up.
Now consider the E minor pentatonic scale vertically. Two notes per string is the easiest fingering pattern and dashes are used to represent skipping to the next string, starting with the low E string: 0, 3 - 0, 2, - 0, 2 - 0, 2 - 0, 3 - 0, 3. After you have played this scale a few times it will probably begin sounding familiar. Modern music uses this scale more commonly than any scale. When you play these scales think about the notes as you go and try to associate each fret with its note name. This will give you insight into the patterns and help you learn the scales faster.
Practicing scales is essentially the only way to commit them to muscle memory. The sound of the scale is easy to remember because it is so familiar to your ears but the muscles movements are coordinated gradually through repetition. Once you have played through it a number of times, write it down how it appears in your head. Regardless of whether you are learning it by note name or fret number it helps to write it down and look at it. It is almost like a second opinion. Tap your foot in a steady rhythm and make sure to pick the notes evenly along with your tapping foot. Practice with all of your attention on the notes and your string picking. Then practice them while watching TV, and allow yourself to begin using your unconscious mind to access the scales.
Lastly, apply these scales all the time. Throw on your favorite CD’s or the radio and play along using the patterns you know. You may find that the notes are not the same, but these scale patterns can be slid anywhere on the neck as long as the spacing between notes remains true. Once you have a firm grasp on the E minor pentatonic scale begin adding in the two extra notes that make up G major. It is just two more notes, a C and F#. Moreover, that is a very manageable addition to what you already have down. When you learn scales in bite-sized portions, it is very easy to apply them as you go along. Then you avoid getting bogged down in theories you cannot employ. Scales are our friends, and they will forever be an expanding guide to your fret board roadmap.
