How to Think About Guitar Scales

We live in a world of instant gratification. In the age ofthe internet, streaming video, and fast food, no one wants to spend much timedevoted to just one thing. But in some of these cases, people tend to take whatthey see as a short-term time saver and unknowingly sacrifice long-term resultsin the process. The general approach to guitar scales held by most students andteachers is no exception.

Typically a guitar teacher will give students a chart withthe finger positions designating a certain scale. This allows the student toget the scale under their fingers without having to do anything but look at apiece of paper and then memorize the pattern it conveys. Usually, when taughtin this fashion, it does not take much time at all for a student to be playingthe new scale. Sounds good, right?

While this method does provide the instant gratification, andenables students without musical experience to understand what they need to do,it also leads them down a dead end they might not ever escape from.

Let’s talk about the problems with thinking about guitar in scalesthis way. You can start playing them quickly, but do you understand what it isyou are actually playing? Do you understand why it sounds the way it does? Theteacher might mention the theory behind it, but what are the chances of thestudent really absorbing and understanding the theory when learning the scaleis purely eye to hand?

This standard school of guitar scale instruction completelytakes the ear out of the equation, but the problems don’t end there. Whathappens when a student wants to play the scale in a different part of thefretboard? They need to learn another pattern to be able to do that. In fact,to play any given seven-note scale you will need seven patterns to completelycover the fretboard.

How is it going to feel after a while when you want to learna few more scales and you need multiple patterns for each one? What if you findyourself on the high E string and you need to continue up the scale but yourpatterns are all for playing across multiple strings?

As you can see, this method becomes weighted down withmassive amounts of memorized information and very little ear development. Mostplayers who are taught this way will never explore the guitar in a freelycreative way, and because of this, will usually lose interest in theinstrument.

A better manner of teaching is to emphasize learning scalesby interval, which teaches them by ear, in effect. Students should practicescales on one string and really focus on memorizing the sound of it rather thanone of its possible fingerings. The guitar is an instrument that creates a hugeamount of possible ways to play any given set of notes, but if you have themmemorized by ear, its all just the same thing.

Thinking about and learning guitar scales with this moremusical approach will give you a slower start, but when other players arebecoming frustrated with how contained and rigid the guitar seems, you will benoticing more and more freedom in your playing, and this will pay off in theend.