Guitar Basics, chapter 5

By Darrin Koltow

Guitar basics: scales

Welcome back to the Guitar Basics series of lessons. What other basics do we need to learn, or be reminded of, if you've been playing for some time already? How about some common problems and their solutions, like not seeing the purpose of an exercise?

What's the point of doing scales or learning a new chord? Why should we bother figuring out a tune by ear instead of just going to Olga and getting the tablature for it?

Boy, you're just full of the tough questions today, aren't you? Well, good. I like a challenge. Let's take tackle one of these questions.

The point of scales

The point of doing scales is simply this: to show your fingers where the notes you need to make music are. Do you *have* to do scales to accomplish this? Absolutely not. There is only one absolute have-to in music: to make music. I'm not being facetious here; I'm serious. If you had only ten minutes a day to practice — which may apply to you, at least sometimes — are you gonna choose to play scales, or play tunes?

If you said, "play scales," transcribe five Art Tatum solos, and watch the Exorcist with the lights off — backwards. Of course you're going to play tunes. Even if you're just strumming and humming and singing, you're making music. Playing scales, as they're traditionally taught, is not making music.

And you intuitively know this: your ears *know* when they're hearing music. And when you hear *yourself* making music, you feel a sense of rightness, of satisfaction, like you're scratching an itch you've had for a long time.

You sense you're not making music when, the first time you tackle a new exercise, you start thinking about baseball, or what's for dinner, or something apart from what you're doing. Your mind doesn't just wander; it takes a leave of absence. More accurately, it's like an employee you're not paying enough, who decides to go looking for another job.

But back to scales: you want to practice them if you have the time. Scales condition your fingers to go to the right notes at the right time. Playing scales is like teaching your fingers how to do the Twist, the Tango, or whatever other dances you prefer. See, you could get out there on the dance floor without knowing how to dance: you stomp your foot and snap your fingers instead. And that might feel pretty good, though you might get strange looks from the people who are dancing.

In the same way, you could get some musical sounds by hitting notes at random on the guitar. "Let's see, I feel like hitting fret 6, string 3, fret 5, string 4, and ..." I bet some people have actually learned to make music this way, and had a blast doing it. Still, you can get results in playing melodies quicker if you practice scales.

** Practicing scales shows your fingers where to go to play melodies on the guitar **

And they do other positive things for your musical development, too: they teach you the notes on the fretboard, which will help you in learning new chords. They also give you material to improvise with for a solo.

And here's something we went over in the Playing Guitar by Ear saga:

* Practicing scales makes it easier for you to learn melodies by ear *

How does it do this? By drastically reducing the number of possible notes you need to think about.

It's like this: imagine you get dropped down in the middle of a jungle or an abandoned island. Think Survivor, okay? You know nothing about how to survive in the wild. But you strongly suspect that you can get some kind of food supply from the plants that surround you. Of course, you're correct.

The only trouble is, eating some of those plants will kill you, some will merely put you in a coma for two weeks, and some might be pretty tasty and filling. But, unless you've learned about the *plants in this place* — like the notes on the guitar — you might be better off fishing for food.

You know, these metaphors might be amusing, but I hope you realize how instructive they are, too.

Therefore, if you have the time after learning to play songs, take just a bit of time to practice scales.

Here's a scale exercise you can practice. You might find it more fun to play with the midi file, the Power Tab, or another player, instead of playing with just a metronome.

First, here are some basic chords for a second guitar to play, while you practice the scales. Or, record yourself playing these chords, and then play with the recording. The left-most number is on the high E string. An "X" means "don't play anything on this string."

C
x 3 2 0 1 0

Dm
x x 0 2 3 1

G7
3 2 0 0 0 1

Okay, now for the scale exercise itself.

BPM=80, 4/4

  C                             Dm

  Gtr II
  Q Q Q Q      Q Q Q Q     Q Q Q Q    Q Q Q Q
  | | | |      | | | |     | | | |    | | | |
  / / / /      / / / /     / / / /    / / / /

  Gtr I
  Q Q  Q Q    Q Q Q  Q    Q Q Q  Q    Q Q   Q  Q
|-----------|-----------|-----------|------------|
|-----------|-----------|-3---------|------------|
|-----------|---2-4--5--|---4-5--4--|-2----------|
|------2-3--|-5---------|-----------|---5---3--2-|
|-3-5-------|-----------|-----------|------------|
|-----------|-----------|-----------|------------|
  2 4  1 2    4 1 3  4    2 3 4  3    1 4   2  1

(Finger numbers appear at bottom of tab.)

 G7                             C
    Q Q Q Q        Q Q Q Q      Q Q  H    W
    | | | |        | | | |        |  |    |
    / / / /        / / / /        /  /    /

  Q   Q   Q  Q   Q   Q   Q  Q      H  H    W
|--------------|---------------|---------|----|
|--------------|---------------|---------|----|
|--------------|---------------|---------|----|
|--------------|-----2---3-----|---------|----|
|-5---3---2--3-|-5----------5--|---3--3--|-3--|
|--------------|---------------|---------|----|
  4   2   1  2   4   1   2  4      2  2    2 

Duration Legend
---------------
W-whole; H-half; Q-quarter; E-8th; S-16th; T-32nd

+ - note tied to previous
. - note dotted
.. - note double dotted

S - shift slide

Duration letters will always appear directly above the note/fret number they represent the duration for. Duration letters with no fret number below them represent rests.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Get the Power Tab file for this progression here:

http://www.MaximumMusician.com/PairFiles/BeginnerScalePractice.ptb

And get the MIDI here:
http://www.MaximumMusician.com/PairFiles/BeginnerScalePractice.mid

If you need the free and awesome Power Tab app, get it here:

http://power-tab.net

Get your free can of chocolate-covered frogs here: http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/frogs.html.

About hand position

Do you know that to play this exercise, and most scale exercises, you keep your hand in place unless you absolutely have to move it? This makes a lot of sense, which you can see for yourself if you've tried to move your hand around to get at different notes. After a while, your poor hand says, "Forget it man. If I'm gonna be doing all this moving around, why don't we just play drums instead?"

Keeping your hand in place when possible means that you'll be doing stretches with some of your fingers to hit those occasional notes that don't sit within a span of four frets. (But the exercise just given involves no such stretches.) Which fingers do you stretch? Your first and your last (or your index finger and your pinky). This intro to positioning your hands and fingers could get us into a whole new topic, but let's focus on the one exercise for now. Just remember:

*When playing scales, keep your hand stationary whenever possible. If you need to play a note outside of the four-fret span, stretch your index or pinky to get it.*

A bluesified scale

And once you've worked through that scale exercise, reward yourself with this bluesified version of it. This is extra credit. You won't flunk if you can't play this. It's for fun.

Q=80(8=s8)
  C                                 Dm
 4/4
  Gtr II
  Q    Q Q   Q    Q Q Q Q        Q Q Q Q     Q Q Q Q
  |    | |   |    | | | |        | | | |     | | | |
  /    / /   /    / / / /        / / / /     / / / /

  Gtr I
  Q Q  E E E E    Q Q E E  Q    Q Q Q  Q    E E Q Q  Q
|---------------|-------------|-----------|-------------|
|---------------|-------------|-3---------|-------------|
|---------------|---2-3-4--5--|---4-5--4--|-1-2---------|
|------1-2---3--|-5-----------|-----------|-----5-3--2--|
|-3-5-----------|-------------|-----------|-------------|
|---------------|-------------|-----------|-------------|

  G7                                   C
  Q Q   Q Q            Q Q Q Q         Q Q  H     W
  | |   | |            | | | |           |  |     |
  / /   / /            / / / /           /  /     /

  Q   E E   E E  E E   Q   Q   Q  Q    H  Q Q     W
|--------------------|---------------|----------|---|
|--------------------|---------------|----------|---|
|--------------------|---------------|----------|---|
|--------------------|-----2---3-----|----1-2---|---|
|-5-----3---1-2----3-|-5----------5--|-3--------|-3-|
|--------------------|---------------|----------|---|

The fingering here is essentially the same as in the first tab. The midi and Power Tab files are the same as those mentioned above.

And I can't resist giving one more metaphor to show how learning scales makes learning melodies (and eventually chords) *so* much easier: you know those connect-the-dots puzzles, where you're given a mysterious-looking group of dots, numbered 1 to three thousand and eleven, and you have to draw lines connecting all the dots so they form a picture that actually looks like something?

Drawing a picture using these dots is a heck of a lot easier than drawing something on a blank piece of paper with no numbered dots to guide you, correct?

Well, learning scales is like creating those numbered dots. And once you feel comfortable — not necessarily expert — in playing just one scale form, learning melodies by ear becomes as easy as connecting the dots to form the picture. Now, the Metaphor Police are coming to take away my Poetic License; I've overused my quota. But they're so instructive!

Guitar Chords (GC) builds your chops and helps you identify the most important chords by ear. GC shows you how to substitute and combine chords; play Jazz, Rock and Blues progressions; transpose songs; put chords to a melody; apply fingerpicking, alternating bass, arpeggios, and much more.