Learning Guitar Scales

Everyone has heard about learning them and no one wants to do it. Learning guitar scales is a boar there can be no doubt about it. This is especially true for a novice guitar player. When you first start out playing all you want to do is burn up and down the neck. However I assure you that burning you are doing only sounds good to you.

So what’s with these scales everyone is going on about. Why is it so important? How will this make you play like Slash? More importantly what scales do you need to learn? This above all is a great question. There are tons of scales and finding the best scale to start with can be sort confounding.

Let’s take a step backwards and look each of these questions. Why are scales so important? Leaning and practicing scales builds up your dexterity. This is extremely important. You have to be able to put your fingers in the correct location on the guitar fretboard and you need to be able to have enough strength to push the string down to get a good sound. So we practice scales sort of like a running jogs before a marathon. To build up strength.

How will learning guitar scales help you play like your favorite guitarist. Well we already addressed one reason strength and dexterity. The next maybe the most important and overlooked aspect of guitar playing. That is learning the theory and the notes on the fretboard. As guitar players we need to grasp the basics of music theory and learning scales provides this to us and at the same time forces us to learn the notes we are playing. Take your time on this and learn some of the basics this will only help you in the future. It is much harder to come back and learn this later.

Now as to what scale you should learn. There is as I said no shortage of scale to be learned. However picking the scales to start with is easier then you might think. I will suggest the three most important scale in my opinion. There several other scales that should be learned later but these are a great place to start. In order of importance 1) Major Guitar Scale 2) Natural Minor & 3) Minor Pentatonic Scale. There are great learning methods available to you for detailed instruction such as Guitar Scale Mastery and Pentatonic Power. I would strongly recommend these guitar lessons if you are looking for a detailed look into learning guitar scales . Click on the above links for more details if you wish.

Bellow is the 2 octave box scale for the all 3 scales the R indicates the root notes. These scales can be played anywhere on the neck. Work with these scales.

The Major Scale:

The Natural Minor Scale: 

The Minor Pentatonic Scale: