major scale Archives - Page 2 of 4

The Trick of Playing and Improvising Smoothly Across The Fretboard With Diatonic Scales.

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I used to be amazed by guitar players who’s fingers ran smoothly up and down across the fretboard while improvising.

It seemed their fingers just went to the right place at the right time without the guitar player really having to think about it. It’s like those fingers had a life of their own.

Although the pentatonic / blues scale would already allow me to go wild and free in a blues rock environment, but playing like that using diatonic scales (major scale, natural minor scale and modes) looked like a whole nother ball game.

A side note: If you haven’t mastered the pentatonic / blues scale yet, then take that journey first. Start here

I did learn the diatonic major scale and it’s modes in different shapes, keys and tried various exercises, but it didn’t come off as sounding natural and I missed that feeling of sliding freely and musically across the fretboard without having to think about it.

It took a while before I figured this one out when I started playing melodic patterns.

MELODIC PATTERNS
A melodic pattern is an intervallic and repetitive pattern that will make your scales sound less like scales and more like musical phrases. The pattern provokes melody. There are many variations, from easy ones to more challenging patterns.

Practicing melodic patterns will increase your dexterity and make your technique become more fluid. With regular practice you will start noticing that your fingers will be going to the right place at the right time. They will develop, to some extent, a life of their own. Your fingers are being trained to master the fingerboard.Continue Reading

Top 10 Most Important Scales for Guitar

By Klaus Crow 9 Comments

Scales serve many purposes. They will help you understand music, how to solo, improvise, analyze chords, chord progressions, songs and many other applications that will benefit and expand your musical ability.

You need to learn and practice scales thoroughly and then use them as a tool to create music. The amount of scales out there can be overwhelming for a lot of beginner and intermediate guitar players. So do you need to learn all the scales from this top 10? No, you only need to learn the scale(s) relevant to your style of music.

A lot of musicians only use one or two scales throughout their entire musical career. Depending on your skill level and musical aspirations very few or many scales will get you where you want to be.Continue Reading

The 5 Major Scale CAGED Shapes – Positions

By Klaus Crow 23 Comments

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If you know how to play the major scale in one position and you’re ready to learn to play it all over the fretboard then this lesson is the next step.

If you haven’t played the major scale before you might wanna check out this post first: How to Play The Major Scale Guitar Guide for Beginners and Intermediate.

The major scale is the mother of all scales and your reference point for all other scales. That’s why it’s so important to master all of these five scale shapes.

The five C-A-G-E-D scale shapes (C shape, A shape, G shape, E shape and D shape) surround the entire fretboard. The “shapes” are sometimes also referred to as “positions”. In this post we use the G major scale as an example. So all five scale shapes (see below) are G major scale.

You can apply these scale shapes to all 12 keys by simply moving the shapes up or down the fretboard. For example: If you move the five shapes up a whole step (2 frets) then all the shapes are in the key of A, so you have five A major scale shapes.

The five scale shapes are derived from the CAGED system. If you’re not sure what the CAGED system is all about check out: What is The CAGED System? (The Keys to The Fretboard)

Each scale shape is related to a chord shape and surrounds that chord shape so you can easily identify the name of each scale shape. In each diagram below you can see the scale shape and the chord shape (made up of the red and green dots) that is surrounded by the scale shape.

PLAYING THE SCALE SHAPES / POSITIONS

If you look at the diagrams, play each scale shape starting from the lowest root note (the red note) then play all the way up (ascending) to the last note on the high E-string, then play all the way down (descending) to the first note on the low E-string and then play up again to the first root note you’ll hit upon. The tablature shows you how to play each scale shape ascending and descending.

Tips

– Practice the scale shapes with a pick using alternate picking technique (down, up, down, up, etc.)
– Practice slowly first and make sure each note sounds clean and clear.
– Try to visualize the chord shape in each scale shape.
– Make sure you can play each scale shape thoroughly before moving on to the next.
– Be patient and persistent, it takes some time to get them all under your belt.
– Repetition and regular practice is the key to success!

Have fun!

Building Chords and Progressions of The Major Scale

By Klaus Crow 22 Comments

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Knowing how to build chords and chord progressions is a really great tool for writing your own songs and communicating with your fellow musicians on how to play a certain piece of music, “Let’s play a 1 4 5 progression in the key of…”

You can create the most beautiful chord progressions and songs by ear and you don’t necessarily need to know music theory for that, but it makes the life of a musician a lot easier if you do know some music theory on this part.

It’s nice to know what other musicians are talking about and how you can create chord progressions in a more effective and efficient way.

Adding music theory knowledge will reveal a lot of secrets you wish you had known before, so don’t wait for later or you’ll miss out on all the good stuff. Music theory will definitely make you a better musician!

Now let’s dive in:

From the major scale you can build 7 diatonic chords. The major scale consists of 7 notes, so that’s one chord of each note.

Let’s take the C major scale for example.

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