scales

Hello all!
I have been playing for years (and I'm not so hot).
I play most chords fairly well, but cannot for the life of me
interest myself in scales. I'm not so interested in knowing
scales, but want to be able to do bass runs & little riffs while
playing/singing. Well, it's not working. Do I have to teach myself
scales in order for my brain to just automatically know how
to do bass runs?

I've also heard that learning scales will improve the sound
of your chords...is that true?
If so, how do you make yourself buckle down and ARGH practice
scales?
Thanks, Laurie

knowing the scales positions will show you where to find those nice little notes that will make your dull C major turn into a beautiful C add 9 or sus 4...
You can find basic scale fingerings in the trick section of this site.
As to practice scales, you have to have a strong will, or a friend or teacher that will make you do it... Buy a metronome, and experiment too...
By the way, some players think that chords are just scales played with several notes on top of each other (allan holdsworth is one of them)... So knowing the scales make you play better chords...

Scales are easy once you realize that there's only really 7 of them you need to learn. Use a fingerboard diagram and just think of it like learning 7 new chords except the notes are all played seperately.
An easy way to practice them is to play scales over your favorite songs. Like, somtimes I'll just sit in front of the TV and play scales to the background music on tv shows for instance.
As far as helping you in playing chords...basically anything new that you work on will benifit your playing, even if it's just training your fingers to stretch more or improving your dampening techniques.

Well, thanks for the hints. Think I'll surf around this site more (when I have time).
None of this dorian, aeolian stuff makes any sense to me, especially reading it and
not seeing it. I need basic.

:(

Thanks,
Laurie

start with the starting point, the pentatonic minor and the major scale, you'll work it up from there.

Bass runs? scales? Your objective is to learn 'How to do bass runs?' For my theory, to make it simple,(i don't know about the others), Bass is basically people relates to ROOT. Do you mean like, when you play while you are singing, you want to perform a bassline together with a rythmic line? First you gotta know the root of any chords. Second, learn what chords are made of? Third, learn more about 'bass' skills and there are variety of bass line you can learn if u r more to bass. Eg. When you play the normal chord C major where the root is , say take any of it.. 5th string on the 3rd fret. When you play a 4/4 beat, you probably play C-C-G-G-C-C-G-G (this is the bassline where you play bass G on the 6th string 3rd fret but your chord remains C major. Hope this gives you the basic idea. This is just the basic part. If you want the complicated stuff, try get into Fingerstyle where you will play all the lead line, bass line and the rythm line... which is of course, a step higher than this. Hope this helps...