please help a beginner on progress...

hi, i'm the beginner
and i bought the guitar for dummy book hoping to self-teach myself guitar
i'm wondering how proficient i should be with things like the phrigeane or chromatic scale before i move on to other lessons?
cause i can do the scales fine, but when i move on to further lessons, i'm having trouble picking cause it uses basic fingering techniques from the scales...so i guess i haven't mastered it at all, but i can do the scale because i have memorized where i put my fingers next
is there practice that i can do to be better at fingering or picking?

I would say that if you are a beginner you may be taking on too much by worrying about phrygian and chromatic scales. You should probably be looking at standard major and minor before you worry about modes or anything else. Pentatonic scales are where the majority of people start.

I'd suggest basic chromatic exercise - i.e. one finger per fret and going as below:

1234
----1234
--------1234
------------1234
-----------------1234
----------------------1234

then slide up a fret and go back down. It'll work your fretting hand, and make sure you strictly pick down/up/down/up even when crossing strings keep alternating. That should help. Do it to a metronome slow aat first and gradually speed up over MONTHS! You can also rearrange the order of the notes so your fingers build dexterity. There are loads of exercises on the 'net.

Don't worry about piles of scales until you have the mechanical skill to execute them...

Plenty of practice dude.... :D

**Edit** - should have been specific. I'm not saying not to practice anything but chromatic exercises for months, just trying to indicate that it takes a long time to build up finger strength and dexterity - don't get downhearted if you haven't turned into Steve Vai by the weekend!

Good Luck...