Scales overload Please Help

Hi guys,

I'm just trying to get a grasp of some of the most important scales I will need to further my ability on the guitar, mostly when doing improv. Currently I really only know the blues scale which limits my playing quite a bit. Are there a group of scales that are the most important?? because everywhere I look there seems to be stacks of different ones but I assume they only vary by a note or two from some significant scale pattern? If anybody could help me out it would be much appreciated : ) cheers

The most important scale you can study on is the major scale.

Learning about the major scale will open the doors for you to learn about modes and they relations to one another.

So My advice ... get to know your major scale :)

If you have access to our online lessons here at GT, these lessons/tutorials should get you some good info:

http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=10142
http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=10072&s_id=249
http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=7360&s_id=50

From there you can sink you teeth in the hundreds of lessons that show you practical application of using those scales.

You could also look at Christopher Schlegel tutorial on the pentatonic scale how you can add more notes to it to give you access to a whole new way set of possibilities in your solos.

Hi biggers,

Benoit is right. The first scale I would recommend you to learn, it's the most fundamental one, it's the Major scale.

place to start is most definitely the majour scale as said above.

then go into modes get a feeling for them. escpecially the aolion (minor) mode.

after that i learnt the harmonic minor, then i ocasionally flaten the second wich gives you one of the other modes (i forget the name).


if this goes over your head dont worry, and dont try this till u are at least comfortable with the majour scale and its modes. other scales are adatives but they are not a base. and a good base is what is needed to sound solid. the additives just give a bit of creativity and extra intrest. but without the solidness it sounds random.

well thats my opinion. just showing whre you could go.

ohh also being comfortable with a scale is not just knowin the notes it is also understanding them. like knowing wich is the root, third, fith, seventh as well as the others. and understanding how they relate to chords.

hope this helps

Well I, firstly learned the Blues and the Harmonic minor scales and I can tell that I can orientate much better in the Harmonic scale than in the Diatonic. Both visually and with my ear (thou my ear is bad) I guess thats because the harmonic consists kinda like of two parts (kinda divided), for I see it like one part is like the diatonic and the other has the sharpened note. When I lose the visual look of the scale I can orientate back to it by ear, allot easier than I can on the diatonic.
The question. Is it because I just know the Harmonic scale allot batter and learned it first or is it because the harmonic, sharpened note is more noticeable, at least for me.

thanks very much for your rreplies people. They have been very helpful

cheers

I learned scales like this, Minor Pentatonic, Major Scale then Modes of the Major Scale. Including the theory involved not just finger patterns.

I started out by learning the Blues scale, the Pentatonic minor, Pentatonic major (all very similar) then I learned the 'minor Jazz scale' which I later discovered was infact the Dorian mode of the Major scale. This lead me to the Major scale itself and all the other Modes.

Like everyone else I'd suggest you learn the Major scale early on and not go all around the houses like I did (One of the big problems of teaching yourself!)

Originally Posted by: Lee CarlsonI learned scales like this, Minor Pentatonic, Major Scale then Modes of the Major Scale. Including the theory involved not just finger patterns.

exactly. dont just learn the notes learn the relevance of each note and how they relate to chords