Some good scale excercizes

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One Drew Remains
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Some good scale excercizes

Post by One Drew Remains »

Hey guys. I've been playing guitar now for about 14 months. Starting on scales. I was wondering if some of you more seasoned musicians had any good scale exercizes for a beginner. I have learned A, B, and E minor pentatonic and an e blues scale (I think that's what it's called).

Trying to incorporate some alternate picking in the scales (just started, not too good at it yet) for speed. Thoughts and comments are appreciated.
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Andy92
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Re: Some good scale excercizes

Post by Andy92 »

I haven't practiced much in a while just over being busy with work and school, but I bought a book full of guitar scales for less than $10 at a music store. Scales are really just repetition and muscle memory, so I'd look for a book full of guitar scales as a good place to start.

Practicing to a metronome (or a drum machine if you find a metronome too boring) is also helpful so you can learn to keep proper time as you practice playing the scales. Start with a slow BPM and increase it as you become more comfortable with the muscle memory.
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Timotheus
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Re: Some good scale excercizes

Post by Timotheus »

Huge tip: always start and end your scale on the root note when you're practicing. There will be at least two in one position, so try to start from all of them. Example: if you're playing pentatonic in A, there's an A on the 5th fret of the E strings and the 7th fret of the D string. You're going to have to play that position three times in three different ways.

This is very important because you'll memorize the root notes a lot easier, and when you're improvising, you'll immediately know where roots are and you immediately know where you can go from there. Muscle memory will take over, and it will be a lot easier to interchange between positions.

It also mixes up your picking. If you start on the D string, your picking will be different from when you start on the E string. You're upstrokes will be downstrokes and visa versa if you change it up (at least if you play 2 notes per string).

It also sounds a lot more natural.

I'm not a big lead guy, but I try to exercise my scales as often as possible, and when I started to apply this concept, things went a lot better.
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One Drew Remains
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Re: Some good scale excercizes

Post by One Drew Remains »

Awesome. I'll try that, Timo. Andy, I got a huge scale book at a local shop with nearly every scale imaginable in it (The Guitar Grimoire) and it's daunting just flipping through the pages.
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Ubik
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Re: Some good scale excercizes

Post by Ubik »

One Drew Remains wrote:Awesome. I'll try that, Timo. Andy, I got a huge scale book at a local shop with nearly every scale imaginable in it (The Guitar Grimoire) and it's daunting just flipping through the pages.
Can look that way at first, can also be tempting to just want to get through as many as possible just to feel like you've "got somewhere", but I've found for me I've progressed more by focusing on a few and trying to get as much out of them as possible. You can work on so much with a scale, your speed, your alternate picking, your finger independence, your vibrato and bending, your improvisation, switching between positions etc.

In terms of exercises, the ones I used most at the beginning were just on the major scale, switching up the order of the notes to stop the hand just thinking of it as going up and down. So like, instead of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 up the strings and back, it would be 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 2 3 4 5... or 1 3 2 4 3 5 4 6 5... etc. Just gets you thinking in terms of the notes of the scale rather than a straight ascending/descending pattern, and stops your fingers getting too used to doing just the one movement.
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Andy92
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Re: Some good scale excercizes

Post by Andy92 »

I was first introduced to scales on the piano before I picked up guitar, and Ubik makes some good points about not getting too overwhelmed by the volume of patterns. I try to look at music from a songwriting standpoint more so than just a performance standpoint. That's why I got frustrated with piano at a younger age because I feel like most piano teachers just try to get kids good at playing pieces that have already been written. Once I started playing guitar, I really loved the songwriting mindset behind it. So when it comes to scales, try to focus on enhancing your ability as a songwriter. Because playing up and down the neck at lighting speeds is fine, but if you can't make the transition from playing the scale to incorporating the notes within the scale into a song, the scales lose value.

My point is to back up with Ubik is saying really. Focus on playing around in a few scales to learn how the notes work together. I think this helps when looking at playing guitar for a songwriting standpoint more than just a performance standpoint.
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