improvising/scales

Hey. New here and have been playing for about a year. I just started ear training using
http://www.douglasniedt.citymax.com/page/page/203284.htm
(scroll down to find the interval ear trainer)
because I want to improve my ability to trasfer melodies on to the fretboard and improvise, but I don't know how I should go about learning the scales.

What would be the best way to learn them that would provide the most flexibility? Should I learn the pattern of the scale from the first to the twelfth fret, or should I learn the positions of the scale, or learn all the notes by name on the fretboard and remember what notes each scale consists of (seems the hardest). Any disadvantages to any of these?

I know a guy who has never learnt any of this and just knows where to put his fingers instinctively. He says he developed it just by figuring songs out by ear. Would that be the way to go?

Any help is appreciated.

Originally Posted by: Caliko
I know a guy who has never learnt any of this and just knows where to put his fingers instinctively. He says he developed it just by figuring songs out by ear. Would that be the way to go?

I'm going to have to call BS on that ;). I don't think it's possible to take up playing guitar and not know about scales in at most a few months. Either he's a genius, or he learned some scales.

I learned the pentatonic blues scale first, pretty basic and easy to learn (probably due to it consisting of only 6 notes). Now I'm picking up the major scale (sorry for the inaccuracy to all you theory buffs, probably ionian?). What I've found is it's really easy to learn the major scale after learning the pentatonic because you basically just add a few notes. I would suggest suggest learning each position of the pentatonic first, as this will probably be the most applicable scale you use if you play blues/rock/country.