Scales
To be able to learn, remember, and play scales it takes dedication. Scales are an essential part of making music. Without scales you would be able to understand and play songs by tab or by ear, but you wouldn’t be able to break outside this, you wouldn’t be able to break out into an awesome solo without nearly all of your notes sounding off.
By the end of this lesson you will understand the purpose of scales and be armed with the knowledge and skills to improvise over your favorite tunes. You will understand why some notes sound good together and others sound horrible. I will go through the lesson nice and simply so that no one gets caught up.
Firstly, if you didn’t already know, a scale is a series of notes in a certain pattern which can be repeated all over the neck. When practicing scales, you would play the notes in ascending order of pitch. Each scale has a certain feel towards it (just like a chord does) – ie; Major chords sound happy, minor chords sound sad. This is the same principal with major/minor scales. Like chords, scales also have many different variations, one note change can be a completely different scale. There are literally thousands of different scales.
The great thing about constantly practicing scales is that it slowly ‘trains’ your fingers. This means that you fingers will instinctively play the correct notes while soloing with minimal thought about what notes are the ‘right’ notes.