Sing the notes as I play the scale?

I have been working on scales, most recently a-minor and I have a book that I have picked up some cool stuff out of, and the book said, sing the note's in the scale as I play? This could be a dumb question but... Like A-B-C-D-E-F-G as I go along.

This would help me learn to locate notes of the scale and not just finger placement. Also phrasing??

Is learning location of the notes important at this point, is it worth the work, I would like to avoid spinning my wheel's.

Am I going in the right direction on this, will it pay off? Any further thoughts that might help would be great.

Thank You.

Originally Posted by: pthommes...sing the note's in the scale as I play?

Yes, that is a fine idea. But make sure you aren't trying to do too much.

If you are a complete beginner it could be more than enough to simply try to play the notes. Then you add in remembering the note names & staying in time & singing the notes, this is fine as long as you can do it all. Just make sure you can play the scale well enough first, then add in other tasks.

Learning note location on the fretboard is very important & worth the work in the long run. But again, make sure you aren't trying to do too much at any given point. Take your time to make sure you get each task right, then move to adding more gradually.

Make sense? Hope this helps! Best of success with it.

Strictly speaking, singing along with the notes will not help your fingering. From my experience, what I think the book is trying to teach you is to try and develop your ear. When you sing with the note, listen whether you're matching the pitch your guitar's making with your voice.

It's more about music theory than guitar techinque. By doing as the book says, you'll be teaching yourself (and your ear) about intervals and learning the difference between a half-tone and whole-tone.

My advice would be that if singing along with the notes is affecting your ability to play the scale, put it to one side for the time being and come back to it later. Long term it's a skill well worth having; however, you shouldn't let it stop you from progressing in terms of guitar technique.

If you do want to sing along with the notes, it's entirely up to you what you choose to sing. A-B-C-etc. is fine, or you could sing the DOH-RAY-ME-etc scales, or even LA-LA-LA - the important thing is to listen to the note coming from you guitar and match it with your voice. Whatever works best for you is the correct way of doing it...

Hope that's of some use...