Scales

I am a beginner and I am looking at the fundamentals, scales videos by Schlegel. I see the CMajor scale and wanted to know if it is necessary to learn EVERY pattern available for that scale. There are 4. Thanks!

Hey & welcome to GT!

Originally Posted by: tarajanak83I see the CMajor scale and wanted to know if it is necessary to learn EVERY pattern available for that scale. There are 4. Thanks!

The first pattern is the linear one. This is just to show the scale in a completely linear form so you can easily see the intervals of the scale. This is more for conceptual understanding & future reference.

The next 3 patterns are the valuable ones that you should learn to play.

It is possible that depending upon your goals you could get away with only learning & being competent at pattern 3 (the open position). If you are only going to play simple songs with open chords & maybe a few notes to walk in between the chords & never go any further, that might be acceptable.

But, any corner you cut at the beginning has magnified consequences down the road.

So, you don't have to learn & play them all right now. Take your time. Learn one pattern this week. Practice it the following week. Learn the next pattern the week after that. Practice that pattern the following week. And so on. Take your time & have fun with it. Be patient with yourself.

But, do it right & get your money's worth. Make sense?

Ask more if necessary. Have fun. :)

Definitely well said. In my opinion, the more you know the more fun you have. The lead ideas you get and can come up with just multiply with the different positions. Like CSchlegel said you dont have to learn them all right now.

The more you play with the scale, the more natural it will become. After a while you just start feeling the scale rather than thinking about the scale. Your fingers start to know if you should go up or down a half or whole step or if it is time to jump to the next string on their own. Explore them and have fun with them. Try listening to your favorite songs and find the scale they are using and mess around with your own melodies using that scale in the song. It helps to make a scale "feel" right and you're having fun while doing it. There is knowing theory and there is natural understanding. Both are keys to being better.

To really get to know the C Scale I recommend Bobby Howe's Double Stop tutorials http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=14573&s_id=956

If you understand the logic behind scales, then you would need to worry about how many scales to learn, you learn one.. know the logic.. there is no count of how much you will be knowing. Yes.. but about how much thorough u need to become with scales is.. i must say yes.. practice an much as u can.. it will be very useful when u move further to chords. Here is a link for you:

http://learnplayingguitar.blogspot.com/2011/09/understanding-guitar-scales-and-how-its.html