Scales Archives - Page 5 of 12

Your First Pentatonic Scale

This tutorial has been conceived for beginner guitar players who want to go beyond strumming chords and start playing scales all along the fretboard.

Learning how to play scales is a great way to expand your musicality and exercise your fingers agility; one of the easiest scales to learn at the beginning of your lead guitar adventures is definitely the scale pentatonic.

We’re going to see the pentatonic scale in open position, that means that the shape of the scale uses some open strings. This decreases the complexity of the fingering and makes easier to play great melodies.

What is a Pentatonic Scale
In the word “pentatonic”, “penta” means “five”, in fact a pentatonic scale is composed of 5 notes (in this tutorial we’re not going to investigate the historical origin of this scale, you can find an interesting article on that here)

We already know the major scale. In the key of C, the major scale is:

C D E F G A B

By definition, a major scale pentatonic is like a major scale, without the 4th and 7th degrees. Thus the C major scale pentatonic is composed of the following notes:

C D E G AContinue Reading

10 Reasons to Learn (New) Scales Now and How

By Klaus Crow 2 Comments

Most beginner and even some intermediate guitar players try to avoid scales. They don’t see the use of it. A scale doesn’t sound cool. It can be tough and boring to practice.

But once you know the truth and potential behind scales a whole new world of possibilities will open up for you. The truth is “Scales is Everything!” If you practice and study the scales regularly, you will soon reap the benefits of this immense musical working tool that has the answer to all your musical questions and controls everything you play, whether you like it or not. ;)

So let’s take a look at the 10 reasons to learn scales Now and How.

LEARN NEW SCALES TO:

1 – Analyse chords.
Knowing scales means you have the ability to analyse and figure out chords and chord structure. You will understand from what notes a chord is made up, why it is played and named a certain way, and why it sounds the way it does. The chord theory gives you the knowledge to calculate and analyse every single chord that is put in front of you. Knowing and understanding scales and chord theory will make everything easier to grasp. You will learn to see the bigger picture.

2 – Create chord progressions
In the same way, scales give you the notes and formulas to build your own chord progressions. You will find the chords that match and sound good together and create beautiful sounding chord progressions. You will learn the relationship between chords and scales and how they interact. So, if a lead guitar player asks you to play a chord progression in the key of G to provide a jam track for him/her to solo over, you can feel confident to do that.
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What Scales to Play over a Song in a Major Key

By Klaus Crow 11 Comments

There are so many songs and so many scales. So what scales do you need to solo and improvise over a song in a major key? And what chords can you find in a major key?

First, when a song is in a major key, it means it’s based on a major scale. The song usually conveys a bright, happy or cheerful mood. There are seven chords that you can derive from that major scale. We’ll look into that in a few seconds.

To be able to improvise over a major key you also need a major type scale. The two most commonly used scales are the major scale and the major pentatonic scale.
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The Brilliant Benefits of The Blues Scale

By Klaus Crow 6 Comments

The pentatonic scale is a great scale to start out with when you’re learning to play lead guitar. But once you got that under your belt you can quickly move on to the blues scale. Even for guitar players who have kept their chops limited to the pentatonic scale for years, it will be enlightening to see how the blues scale can help out.

Although the blues scale doesn’t look that different from the pentatonic scale, the benefits are tremendous and can have a great impact on your soloing and creative expansion.

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that make the blues scale such an important and valuable scale. We’ll show you how to play the pentatonic scale and the blues scale in different positions. And further we’ll explain how it can benefit, grow and open up your playing.

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