Why learn & practice scales?

[JohnnyDes]

I realize that to many of you my title is heretical. But I would appreciate some discourse on how your scales knowledge and practice manifests itself in your playing. I'm about to embark on scales work, guided by my teacher, and knowing the ways in which scale work will improve/expand my guitar playing will, I think, help me to get more out of them.

I'll confess I'm a little bit of a scale skeptic, feeling that they are sometimes overemphasized as being a critical part of learning guitar (or any other instrument). Hence my earnest search for some insight as to why they are useful.

I should point out that currently my playing is about 40% singing/strumming and 60% solo fingerstyle. I state this because I definitely understand that for lead playing or blues improvisation that scales would be critical.

When I pressed my teacher on this (it was actually MY idea to explore scales), I was impressed by his response. From his perspective, in a nutshell: scales help us figure out what else we can do around the chord structures we're playing on, in any part of the fretboard.

JD

[gitnoob]

Originally Posted by JohnnyDes

scales help us figure out what else we can do around the chord structures we're playing on, in any part of the fretboard.

I've been pondering this myself, and my problem with that answer is that scales aren't usually practiced from chord shapes -- they're often practiced using fairly useless patterns.

So, I see them as not-terribly-useful finger exercises that help you map out the fretboard in a not-terribly-useful manner.

[Doug Young]

Scales are the abc's of music. It's just basic knowledge that it's good to have, just like memorizing the alphabet. Practicing them helps build technique, and if you learn them in a thinking way, you learn the fretboard and start to understand how the notes work together to create music. If you just practice mindless drills, it's just technique, but if you think about them, it becomes a bit - to stretch the analogy - like learning how vowels and consonants work, how certain letters (like th, gh, qu, etc) work together, and so on. Lower level ground work, for sure, but useful. Learn how you build chords from them, how you harmonize them, what chords they work against, etc, and it gets even more useful.

Doug

[Placida]

Why learn & practice scales?

You answered your own question:

Originally Posted by JohnnyDes

From his perspective, in a nutshell: scales help us figure out what else we can do around the chord structures we're playing on, in any part of the fretboard.

[mr. beaumont]

scales are one way to map the fretboard when improvising. If they "click" for you, it'll be worth every hour you put in.

If they don't you can always use arpeggios as well. Ask your teacher to show you the scales in the "CAGED" positions so they're easier to relate to the chords you already know.

The MAJOR SCALE, however, is much more than just something to fiddle around with when improvising--it's the foundation of all Western music and it's harmony! Understanding the major scale can help you learn how chords are constructed, and give you ideas for what chords to use in songs in certain keys. An understanding of the major scale is INVALUABLE.

[gitnoob]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Scales are the abc's of music.

Exactly. And how many of us still practice our ABC's on a daily basis?

Once you learn them, it's time to move on. Same with scales. But my impression is that even those with scale knowledge still practice them as a daily exercise.

[jackcooper]

I very rarely practice scales straight up and down. I prefer to make up scale sequences and use them for exercises. I like to play and sing the sequences in a variety of rhythms. That way I can work on technique and ear training at the same time.

Playing scales using the CAGED system made the guitar much less of a mystery to me.

[CoffeeGuitar]

the fretboard is like a language

if you want to see a country at its fullest having a good knowledge of the language can make an incredible difference

if you are only interest in going to the beach and ordering french fries in a terrible accent then there is no need but if you want the best experience and be able to take every oppurtunity that is open to you then you need to know the language

unfortunately for those who dont find it as fascinating as me this language is musical theory

[Long813]

Originally Posted by gitnoob

Exactly. And how many of us still practice our ABC's on a daily basis?

Once you learn them, it's time to move on. Same with scales. But my impression is that even those with scale knowledge still practice them as a daily exercise.

You could look at it from another way though. Instead of learning the ABC's as in a song [scale shapes], you learn them in a way with no such pattern.

What's after F? Oh it's a G, but one may not have been able to note that if they just learnt a pattern.

To many people only learn scale patterns - which are good for finger dexterity, but they do not teach you the purpose.

Being able to play the 7 notes up and down the neck in no memorable pattern - now that is learning scales.

[warfrat73]

Originally Posted by gitnoob

Exactly. And how many of us still practice our ABC's on a daily basis?

Once you learn them, it's time to move on. Same with scales. But my impression is that even those with scale knowledge still practice them as a daily exercise.

I would agree with you 100% if I thought for a second that anybody knew scales as well and thoroughly as they do the alphabet, but what do you mean by "learn" them? If you can say instantly without thinking about it what notes are in an Ab major scale or a B harmonic minor, or F mixolydian and run through all of their iterations on the fretboard without having to think about it, then I'd say yeah you're probably good to go.

A lot of people, myself certainly included, basically learn scales by rote, without context and just play them in patterns. I'd say that there's generally more to "learning" a scale than that. Can you stop on command in the middle of a scale and know what note you're on, what scale step or are you just playing the pattern? Does it matter? Well, you can get a parrot to mimic the English language, does that mean that it knows what it's saying? If music is a language that means you're saying something, do you want to know what you're saying, or do you want to be a parrot?

Yes, it's about learning the fretboard, and fingering exercises, and warming up. And yes there's probably a point at which you can stop practicing a straight up open position G major scale, but a lot of it depends on what you want out of your playing experience.

Certainly you can learn 8-10 chords and strum along with the Beatles or Neil Young or Coldplay and never learn a scale, but it would be pretty hard to really call yourself a guitar player, let alone a musician.

However, if you want to understand the structure of the music that you're playing, why it's constructed the way it is, understand the subtitles involved without leaving them to chance, then scales become important. If you want to improvise well, and consistently, it's important to know how things go together, and why they work.

[Cue Zephyr]

I'm a scales-skeptic as well, and there is an old topic lying around in the PLAY subforum started by me regarding this subject.
Personally I'm quite lazy when it comes to learning stuff like this inside out. I'd rather muck around with it even if it takes me twice as long. I'm slowly exploring notes around chords that sound good along my rhythm playing (for embellishment) and using more and more barré chords (this also seems to help me find notes I need). The only thing I can't seem to do yet is avoiding the fourth (the 'odd' sounding note) when improvising 'few-note' licks.

[JohnnyDes]

Interesting discussion, and I'm realizing now that there are finer subsets of my question. Perhaps some of my problems come from the fact that in a former life I was a classically-trained trombonist. So I have a very strong familiarity with scales and theory - just not on the fretboard. So when I'm learning to add those flavorful hammer-ons, etc. around a chord on guitar, it's pretty clear to my ear where the good notes are.

In summary of the thread so far, I'd say the essence is not just to learn scales, but to learn them smartly. Indeed, my teacher's first point was that we should learn the scales around the basic CAGED chord forms. I think I can get behind that, but to just blindly look in a book at a "C scale" and practice it for the sake of it, is not my cup of tea.

And thanks to Gitnoob and Cue_Zephyr for coming out as other scale skeptics.

JD

[sully151]

Originally Posted by JohnnyDes

I'd say the essence is not just to learn scales, but to learn them smartly. Indeed, my teacher's first point was that we should learn the scales around the basic CAGED chord forms. I think I can get behind that, but to just blindly look in a book at a "C scale" and practice it for the sake of it, is not my cup of tea.


JD

So does this mean form a C chord and then play a C scale from that shape?

[slimey]

Music is a very personal thing, everyone is motivated by different interests within the scheme of " music"
I have recently decided I'd like to take up the mandolin as a new challenge, before I looked into instruments I went on line looking for books on the scales.
For me music is getting into playing with others as much as I can, I love being able to play any style of music and know most the time where it's going to go. I like taking my turn taking a lead and playing whether it's rock, blues, bluegrass, folk whatever. Scales and understanding some music theory is what opens the door of " whatever" to you.
If you want to be a strummer , camp fire player, rythm player you don't need scales. If you want to do anything else the scales will help especially if you don't want to just learn set pieces.
If all you need to know is what key the songs in, preferably having developed an ear that'll tell you without someone having to say, you really can tackle just about any song.
For me and my "scheme" of music, scales open the door to knowing what note is where on the neck when I want to play that note. For me it's a lot easier than memorizing songs to play. I don't really think about scales any more, I really just think ( feel ) about what I want to play. The the neck knowledge opens this door for you.
For some people playing a beautiful fingerstyle piece is the ultimate, for some classical, for others singing and strumming. It's all good, it's all guitar, it's all music. For me while I love all the styles I prefer turning up at a jam, playing in a band, an open mic, a campfire and being able to join in regardless of what happens.

[JohnnyDes]

Not exactly. I mean form, and visualize a scale around that shape. The notes in the chord will be a subset of the scale.

JD