How to Learn Scales

This book can function as a reference, where you look up a particular scale and learn its fretboard pattern as needed, but it is also structured as a “scale method.” That is, if you start at the beginning and learn each scale in the order presented, you will find that they build in a logical and systematic sequence.

Learning these scales is a process that will take some time and practice. Don’t pressure yourself to learn them too quickly, as this will only cause you to confuse one with the next. Instead, spend enough time with one pattern until you can play through it repeatedly without mistakes. And play slowly! This isn’t a race. After you are comfortable with a given scale, continue to review it from time to time, even as you move on to memorize the next scale pattern.

Now a word about how to practice scales. Obviously one can simply play up and down until the pattern “sinks in.” However, repeating a scale ad nauseum is generally not a particularly effective strategy because the amount of repetition required is often more than any sane person can take! Therefore, it is best to apply a variety of approaches. Here are a few ideas to keep things a bit more interesting:

• Start with the lowest note and add one note at a time, cycling ever higher and higher until you are playing up and down the full scale pattern.
• Sequence the scale ascending and descending in groups of two, three, and four, etc.
• Playing to a metronome, improvise within the scale while maintaining constant eighth or sixteenth notes. You may draw upon sequences, make contours, or skip notes, but don’t leave the scale!

Some of the possible sequences are demonstrated on the first few scales. Of course, you should continue to apply them to each of the scales presented.

Finally, it is important to realize that for scales to ultimately be learned effectively, you must see them at work in real life situations. Then, you will really know them! All theoretical knowledge, including scales, is useless without application. So it is recommended that as you progress through this book, you learn enough music, songs, and/or solos to see some application of these patterns. If this is difficult for you, you may find it beneficial to seek out private lessons with a teacher who can help you recognize real musical applications for each scale.

The scales in this book are presented using fretboard diagrams that work like a picture of the guitar neck. These diagrams reflect the neck from the player’s view. That is, they show the same string and fret placement that you see when you look down at your guitar neck (high E string on top, low E string on the bottom).

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The dots, or inlays, on the neck of your guitar appear on frets 3, 5, 7, 9, and double dots appear at fret 12 (one octave above the open strings). Then above the twelfth fret, the same pattern repeats. In diagrams, these dots are replaced with the actual fret numbers.

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Smaller portions of the fretboard diagram are often used to focus attention on a certain area. For example, the diagram below depicts just the area of the neck between the fifth and ninth frets.

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Dots are used on the fretboard “grid” to indicate the fingering locations notes. Root notes are indicated by circled dots.

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Fingerings are never “written in stone,” but it is generally a good idea to select one and stick with it for a given scale pattern.

Positional Fingering

Positional fingering is a good starting point. This means that each finger gets one fret and plays all notes in that fret. The position number is the fret number of the first, or index finger. For example, the scale shown at the bottom of the previous page (A minor pentatonic) is in fifth position. The C major scale shown at the bottom of the following page is in seventh position. One special case is open position which is synonymous with first position.

Position is not always the lowest fret used in a pattern, but rather the lowest fret of the majority of notes in the pattern. So if all notes are in eighth position except one note on one string which lies on the seventh fret, the pattern is in eighth position, not seventh position. Simply stretch your index finger back one fret when required.

“Blues” Fingering

An alternate fingering approach common to pentatonic-based styles which incorporate a lot of string bending (such as blues and rock) favors fingers 1 and 3, or the index and ring fingers. This often requires an extra stretch here or there, and can be viewed as a modification to the positional approach.

Shifting-Type Fingering

Some scale patterns will require sliding, or shifting, the hand position, so that two different notes on the same string are played with the same finger. Specific directions will indicate how this can be best achieved for each pattern on an individual basis. Additionally, other scales may involve the use of a “floating position” where the pattern begins in one position, then on a particular string, the position shifts into a different position. This happens, for example, in diatonic three-note-per-string patterns.