Learn Guitar Scale with These Tips

You probably know that to learn guitar scales is just about the most boring aspect of guitar practice. Its okay when you are learning the basic stuff, but when it gets to the more complex things it can be really time consuming, and more than a little boring. I’ve got some tips here that will help you cut that practice time in half easily!

Learn Guitar Scale-Tip 1

Sing The Scale. Learning different scales can be tricky because not only are we programming our fingers to know where the notes are, but we are also programming our ears with the sounds and intervals of the scale. One of the best ways to speed up this aspect is to sing each note as you play it. I don’t expect some kind of perfect operatic singing tone; just a simple “La” will do for each note. In doing this you are predicting what the next note will be, and therefore programming your brain with how the intervals for that scale work.

Learn Guitar Scale-Tip 2
Learn the scale on a single string. There’s nothing wrong with learning the scale in the regular way, but I guarantee you’ll get more use of the scale if you learn it on a single string. This will note only speed up your understanding of the way the scale works but it will help you open up other ways of linking it to certain licks etc.

Learn Guitar Scale-Tip 3

Learn it with your fretting hand only. Adopt the “monkey grip” a la Saurian and via, and reach around with your picking hand and grip the strings on the neck to silence them and stop feedback. Now use your fretting hand to run up and down the scale without the extra volume given by the pick. Hear those weak quiet notes? That means your legato sucks. Work at getting each note as loud as it would be with a pick, and you will soon realize that your fretting hand has memorized the scale shape in record time.

Learn Guitar Scale-Tip 4

Practice one octave at a time. If you are starting on the low e string, just play from there up to the D string. Cutting it in half this way really helps your ear memorize the sound of the scale. Sometimes with a new scale, struggling to finger it and find the right position can make the whole thing sound a little disjointed, which only makes it harder for your ear to take in. Breaking it down into easier to manage chunks can really speed up the learning process.

So there you are-apply those tips the next time you have to learn guitar scale and you’ll find that you progress a lot faster than the regular old way of just playing up and down the scale!

Blues guitar lesson : Learn a scale and special techniques