Common Mistakes

Learning too many scale patterns at once – Learning a lot of patterns may seem like a good idea, but it’s actually a recipe for disaster unless you’re regularly using them in your playing. You’ll waste a lot of your practice time, because you won’t be able to retain them without sufficiently ingraining them. You’ll also risk being unable to call up the appropriate pattern for a given situation. But worse yet, you risk mixing up the patterns and playing a wrong note or a series of notes you dislike.

Practicing mindlessly – When you practice in front of the television or attempt to multi-task in any other way, you’re practicing tuning out your guitar. You may be toughening or strengthening your fingers, but you can do that while you practice mindfully, which is a win-win. Not only that, but scale playing is an avenue to melodic playing, not a way to insert scales into your solos. So, if you want to make conscious choices about the sounds from your guitar instead of being locked in by muscle memory, avoid mindless repetitions.

Neglecting to use a metronome – Scale practice is the ideal time to refine or correct your timing, so take advantage of it. The metronome will also serve as an objective measure of your playing speed from day to day.

Practicing without awareness of the scale name – If you don’t know the name of every scale you play, you won’t be able to use them effectively in your playing. Name the scales as you play them but also challenge yourself to find any scale quickly. (Flash cards can help with this.) You’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll come to know the 5^th and 6^th strings. In fact, you’ll probably take less time and energy doing it than you would resisting it.

Using sloppy or incorrect technique – You may think you just want to get through the notes and fix the details later—but do you really want to get good at playing poorly? Always remember that your performance is a reflection of your practice.

The Enlightened Approach

Have a practice plan that evolves as your skills improve. It’s easy to establish a practice routine and never change it. But if you want your scales to work for you, you’ll need to continually create new challenges.

Know each pattern deeply. Learn one scale pattern and don’t move on to the next one until you saturate it. That means practicing intervals, arpeggios, chord scales, and random manipulation within the pattern. I have exercises for all of these and more in the Virtual Studio, so if you haven’t joined yet, jump in!

Learn scales in a logical order. If the patterns you learn work well together, you’ll be able to use them in musical  situations quickly. I have the major scales numbered (scale pattern #1, scale pattern #2, etc.) in all of my lessons and materials (including the Studio) for this reason. The first two patterns will take you a long way in your playing!!

Be musical. When you begin incorporating your skills into your playing, you’ll want it to sound like music, so start now. Focus on technique, sustain, dynamics, and rhythm in your scale practice.

Bring your awareness of the scale into every part of every song or solo you play. Consider the scale function in the melody, leads, riffs, chords, and chord progressions. The better you understand this, the more proficient and creative your playing will be.

It’s a good idea to use scale playing as a warm-up in your daily practice. Even if you don’t play barre chords or know the notes on the fretboard yet, you can quickly learn enough to start playing scales. You only need to be able to locate the notes on the 6th string, so that you can find the starting point for the scale you want to play.

A great way to handle your practice sessions is to begin with finger exercises. Then begin your practice of scales. After you master the major scale patterns, move on to different scales. It’s a good idea to learn the the minor keys and the pentatonic scales next, as they are the basic scales that will be the most useful in your playing.

The most important thing is to take it slowly. Learn —and use—one scale at a time. It may seem that it will take a long time to reach your goal this way, but you’ll actually get there much sooner, and you’ll be a better musician for it.

Starting with Scales: One Pattern, Twelve Scales

The best way to learn scales on the guitar is to use movable patterns that don’t include any open strings. The good thing about using a pattern consisting only of fretted notes is that you can play any scale, simply by changing positions on the fretboard.

I made this video to help you learn your first scale pattern. Follow the instructions carefully and memorize the pattern before beginning your practice. Remember when you’re targeting tonic it won’t be the first note of the pattern. If this doesn’t make sense to you, watch the explanation in the the video again, where I make it clear.