Learning Guitar Scales Intuitively
Learning guitar scales intuitively is something that is not talked about a lot be guitar teachers or players, but it may be one of the most beneficial things to do on the instrument. Most of the time, guitar scales are approached by memorizing patterns all over the fretboard. The problem with this method is that it is very rigid. If you tell someone who has the patterns memorized to change on of the notes in the scale to a sharp or flat, they wont know what to do. Likewise, if you tell them to play the scale on only one or two strings, they will be similarly lost.
You can overcome this ineffective method of learning scales by learning them intuitively. This means to learn them as a sound and feel rather than a specific pattern. At its best, this method will allow you to play any scale you are familiar with on any part of the guitar, however limited. You will also be able to change some of the sounds around to produce different results with greater ease. This technique will also allow you to gain a good feel for how to produce certain sounds, and a feel for when certain intervals should be used. Overall, it can help you develop the ability to play exactly what you hear in your mind.
Since the guitar is an instrument that provides many possibilities for playing the same note or groups of notes, a flexible approach makes sense. Instead of learning a few scale patterns for a certain scale, work on getting the sound of a scale in your head, by playing it a few times and even singing it. Then try to play it without falling into any patterns. Play it on single strings, then between only two strings. Then only in a certain hand position. Go through as many possibilities as possible and then start jumping between different intervals in the scale.
The best way to do this is to improvise melodies in whatever limited areas of the fretboard you can think of. What this does is builds up a connection between your ear and your fingers that will let you achieve whatever sound you want to hear on the guitar. After practicing it for a long time, you should be able to play a scale in any position in an unlimited amount of ways, and you should be able to do it without even looking at the guitar at all.
Once you have achieved this, do it with all sorts of different scales, and you will really see that you are gaining an intuitive feel for producing the right intervals and scales on the guitar. This will free you from knowing scales as patterns only and allow you to play much more freely all over the instrument. You general knowledge and feel for the guitar will also greatly increase.
If you have only learned guitar scales as patterns up until this point, consider taking a more intuitive approach to really take advantage of the freedom the guitar allows.
February 07 2010 02:03 pm | Guitar Scale Charts