Would you folks say not knowing scales is detrimental to my guitar progress? Because even when I was taking guitar lessons, not a lot of time was spent on scales. I have a guitar world magazine that talks about the modes, and when I got it, I spent some time figuring them out and practicing them. I think I'd probably forget most scales anyway the second I stopped practicing them. The way I see it, scales would only come in handy when improvising, and while I'm not very good at improvising, I can usually figure out what fret the note I want to play is at before I play it. Do you guys think scales are really that important? Should I start practicing them?