how many hours?????

..how many hours a day do i have to spend playing chromatic scales????

If you wanna become totally insane, more than 2 minutes...

mmmmmmmmmmmm scales...
when you play them a lot, you get addicted *sigh*
-Daniel

HAHA, I know how you feel. There just seems to be an infinite number of scales! Don't worry though, the more you become familiar with them the better you'll be at the end. A good guitarist can be measured depending on how well they improvise, not how well they copy. And scales allows you to do just that, they allow you to recognize patterns in the different notes and build up on them. Since practicing scales can bring little or no fun, unless you are really into music theory, what I do is warm up everytime I'm going to play with the scales. Run about ten to fifteen scales everytime you start and you'll be proficient enough to play whatever you like afterwards... It's the only way you will be able to build those amazing solos you hear from bands like Led Zeppelin all the way to Ozzy (at least when Randy Rhoads was with him).

I'm gonna ahve to agree with lalimacefolle on this one, don't waste too much time on practicing with charomatic scales, a good 10 minutes of it is all you need a day to be satisfied, unless you are totally insane and want to go playing it like 200 times every day....i'm sure that would build your skill, but would be boring as all hell...

10 min with chromatic,
and then 10 min in every mode and in every scale,
which would be over 12 hours a day.. i think..
then just improvise - jumping around the neck..
Do this for a year or two.. then u should be
insane...

Playing a scale thousands of times over and over, for hours may have some value, but I think you are better off learning scales and concepts that you can apply in the course of playing a song. It sounds like you are at a point where your time would be better spent on trying to find a good guitar teacher. You could try calling some notable music colleges to see if they know of any good music programs in your area.

Scales don't look very important, but they are.
They make a perfect exercise for everybody who wants to play solos.
You can use them as a warming up for your fingers when you begin to play.
You don't have to play them an hour long, just 1 or 2 times, and then practice something else.
Alternate your exercises so they become les boring.

Scales are Very important! I use scales every day. I dont really refer to them as scales, i refer to them as POSSABILITIES (sp?) . They open doors for your playing. master them!