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Guitar Scale Mastery
A Review of Guitar Scale Mastery
Learning scales for guitar over the entire fretboard is a lot easier than you think. It will also improve your lead guitar soloing and speed. This is only true if you use a method that you find interesting and easy to use.
Most methods I’ve tried present the scales on the guitar as a patterns of blocks on the neck of the guitar. You memorise one block pattern and then move up the fretboard and learn the next one.
I’ve always struggled to move up and down to different places on the fretboard using this method. It teaches you to move across the strings and you get stuck to one or two places.
So what if you do manage to memorise all the block patterns for a scale. You’ve then got to do it for all the other scales and keys. I learnt the G blues scale from a book years ago. I learnt the first two or three blocks by memory but found it boring to continue.
I’d struggle to change it to a different key. I could just about manage two blocks.
What Guitar Scale Mastery does is to show you how to learn guitar scales one string at a time, and it’s a lot faster and easier than you might think.
Once you’ve learnt where the notes of the scale are all the way up each string, those block patterns you tried to learn before just come naturally.
There’s theory in this, and again it’s set out in such an easy way that you will wonder why you struggled so much before.
There’s also a lot of practical exercises that reinforce your scale training. There’s single string, two string, and three string exercises that will have you playing guitar solos across and up and down the fretboard.
What you eventually get is a feeling for the notes in the scale and it just comes naturally to play them. Learning to play the scale in a different key then becomes so much easier. And you can then use the same techniques to learn a different scale.
What surprised me the most is the first scale you learn, E major. Now that scale has four sharps in it, F sharp, G sharp, C sharp, and D sharp. I listed those straight out of my head. Before, I would have been counting along the frets on the strings and working out the notes.
When I first started learning music theory, the book I was learning from started with the C major scale which has no sharps or flats in it. The G major scales is next which has one sharp in it, F sharp. After that you get bored and give up.
You don’t get bored and give up with Guitar Scale Mastery. It’s fun and interesting to do. It doesn’t matter how many sharps or flats are in a scale, it just becomes natural to play the right notes.
This isn’t for lazy people, it’s a long term training course that benefits you more the longer you do it. It’s recommended that you give up some time to practice each day. If you’re a keen guitar player, you’re already doing this anyway. I’ve found that even if I don’t pick up my guitar for a couple of weeks, I can still play those scales across and along the fretboard with ease. It’s like riding a bike, you don’t forget how to do it.
More Guitar Scales Articles
Major Blues Scale EbookAs with the minor scales, the major blues scale is the same as its pentatonic version with the blue notes added. The relationship between the major and minor blues box patterns is also the same as with the major and minor pentatonic box patterns. Continue reading
Minor Blues Scale EbookThis free ebook is a handy quick reference guide that shows all the notes and box patterns on guitar fretboard for the minor blues scale in every key including the sharps and flats. It’s not a theory textbook but it will help you to learn the minor blues scales as long as you practice them. Continue reading
Major Pentatonic Scale EbookThis ebook is similar to the Minor Pentatonic Scales Ebook except it shows all the notes and all the boxes for the major pentatonic scales in every key. If you need to put a solo or riff together in a particular key, this ebook will show you the notes and boxes. It shows all five positions, including the ones an octave above and an octave below the root note. Continue reading
Minor Pentatonic Scale EbookThis free ebook shows you all the boxes of the minor pentatonic scale in every key including the sharps and flats. It doesn’t include any theory at all. It’s just a handy reference guide. Just pick the key you want and it will show you all the boxes and notes for the minor pentatonic scale for that key. Continue reading
Minor Blues ScaleVery simply put, the difference between the minor blues and minor pentatonic scale is just one note. The blues scale has one extra note added to the pentatonic scale. This extra note is the flat 5th or blue note. Continue reading
Why Learn Guitar Scales?How Learning Scales On The Guitar Can Make You A Better Guitar Player One very basic reason is that practicing guitar scales helps to improve finger strength and co-ordination and your overall technique. Learning guitar scales will also improve your … Continue reading
Minor Pentatonic ScaleThere are two types of pentatonic scales, major and minor pentatonic. The minor pentatonic scale is the most commonly learnt of the guitar scales, especially by people learning lead guitar or rock guitar and is the one covered in this lesson. Continue reading
G Minor Pentatonic ScaleIf you’ve practiced playing the E Minor pentatonic scale in the previous lesson, you should be starting to get familiar with it. What I’m going to do now is very quickly show you the G Minor pentatonic scale. I’ll show you the tabs and fretboard diagrams for the five positions. Continue reading
A Minor Pentatonic ScaleIf you’ve been practising the E Minor and G Minor pentatonic scales from the previous lessons, you should know them quite well now. I’m not going to show you all the scales, you should be able to work them out for yourself now. What I am going to do is quickly show you the tabs and fretboard diagrams for the A Minor pentatonic scale. Continue reading