In this lesson you will not only begin the process of knowing the scale pattern deeply, you will also get some good practice in mental gymnastics and string skipping! Be sure to do this practice with a metronome. In order to determine the optimum setting, first play just enough of the exercise to determine at what tempo you can play it correctly, while still being slightly challenged. Continue to practice at that tempo until you feel comfortable to the point of under-challenged. When you are ready to increase your tempo, do so in small increments.
Begin by playing the pattern up and back, non-stop, in steady eighth notes. This means that you will play two notes per metronome click. The notes that are played with the click will be down-strokes and the notes that are played in between the clicks will be up-strokes.
When you have played the scale accurately with the metronome several times through, begin to skip randomly to different notes in the scale. Don’t worry about making sense melodically, just stay with the metronome, stay on the move and make sure you are only playing scale tones.
Troubleshooting
When you start to skip around the pattern, you may be tempted to use different fingers than you use when you play the notes of the scale in order. It is important to resist this temptation! By using proper fingering, you will lessen the chance of losing sight of the pattern and you will also avoid relying only on your strongest fingers and neglecting to use the weaker ones.
If you find that you are playing notes that don’t occur in the scale pattern, reduce the time pressure either by playing the notes as quarter notes or by keeping them as eighth notes and decreasing the tempo of the metronome. It is imperative that you play only notes that are in the pattern, so if you are unsure about whether or not you are doing that, slow down until you reach a tempo at which you can be more aware of each note that you play.
You might find yourself frequently playing a series of notes in the scale sequence or even playing a lot of repeated notes in order to fulfill the requirement of playing a steady, non-stop stream of notes. Although repeated notes and scale-wise movement may be valid parts of the random manipulation, it is important to push yourself beyond them as soon as possible. You will gain the most benefit from your practice by incorporating plenty of skips in your line of notes.
You can’t practice random manipulation too much! By practicing it often, you’ll not only continue to increase the depth of your knowledge of the pattern, but you will also improve other skills, such as fingering, string skipping, alternate picking and more. In addition, you will increasingly connect your ear to the notes you play. Incorporate this practice into every session, without seeking immediate gratification, and one day you’ll look up to find yourself able to create more on your guitar than you ever imagined you could.