Frequently Asked Questions About Scales For The Guitar

What Are Scales?

Scales are the building blocks of music. They are a sequence of notes that provide a road map for just about everything including chord construction, chord progressions, songwriting, and soloing. Understanding scales is about as essential to a guitarist's survival as water is to a fish.

How Can I Play In Both Major And Minor Keys With Just One Scale Pattern?

I've been practicing my Major pentatonic scales now for a couple of weeks and I can notice a distinct improvement in my speed of practice and that I'm starting to learn the patterns and anticipating my finger placement better. So, I figure that I should print out the composite views of the Minor scale patterns and start doing those.

This is when i discovered something interesting. That the minor scale patterns are the exact same as the major scale patterns, but a full step and a half behind their major counter parts. IE, that A Major pentatonic scale is the exact same notes played in the F#/Gb Pentatonic scale. So here I was all along doing both major and minor scales at the same time. Isn't that neat?

OK, I'm sure this is nothing new to most of you, but it was interesting to me that I figured that out. I guess I'm making more progress than I'm giving myself credit for, huh?

Talk at ya all laters.

Mike C. (GA Member)

Do I NEED to know scales in order to solo?

You don't need to know scales to play lead guitar, or for that matter, any instrument. A lot of the old blues players claim that they don't know any scales or theory whatsoever. All you need is an ear to tell you if the notes sound good. Knowing scales does however, allows you to be able to improvise smoothly and coherently without sounding like a train wreck. Theory is great, but feel is just as important. Developing both is the tricky part. That said, learn your scales. It will help.

Scales and lead patterns and modes and all that stuff is organized that way in music because it sounds good. I guess that's why I said that you don't really have to know scales to play lead. You do have to know patterns. But theory definately helps. The cool thing about the CAGED system is that it maps out the whole fretboard for you so you aren't locked into one position. When you play in different positions, you play with more variety and are more flexable. It makes improvisation great because once you find the tonal center of the song, you can run the neck, and develop different phrasing in different positions.

Jack (GA Member)