Learning scales

[Gabe Masry]

My adventure continues. I'm starting to see chords pretty well. I have been playing along to some songs and getting some nice sounds overall. My next task will be learning scales. I'm in C6 tuning. I'm planning to map out a C major scale all over the neck. I figure that this will accomplish learning the scale itself and help to drill the notes into my head.

I'm sure that I can learn this on my own but if anyone can offer some advice on some ways to use scales for soloing and methods for practicing I'd love to hear it. Right now I am basically using the high E string exclusively. I play rock, blues and jam type stuff (Allman Bros, Grateful Dead, etc...) so I'm hoping to get familiar with scales sooner than later.

Thanks for the help!

[Mike Neer]

I'm in the process of writing a book on the topic of scales and modes for steel guitar. Should be ready in about 2 months. It's going to be very thorough.

[Dennis Coelho]

Here is more info on C6, maybe more than you want, all organized:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... highlight=

[Gabe Masry]

Here is more info on C6, maybe more than you want, all organized:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... highlight=

Haha, I have no idea how to navigate through all of that to get to what I need. There's a LOT of stuff there!

[Les Anderson]

I'm in the process of writing a book on the topic of scales and modes for steel guitar. Should be ready in about 2 months. It's going to be very thorough.

Mike, will this book/booklet be for sale once you have it complete: and, will be for a six string lap or 8 string non pedal?

I am not a music teacher by any stretch of the imagination; however, I am in the midst of teaching two young people how to play a D8 non-pedal and I am desperately trying to to get them to accept that being able to hear scales in their heads before they touch the strings is a vital part of learning to play an instrument.

[Dennis Coelho]

Les: I'd start with common known melodies like Happy Birthday or Jingle Bells and then find them in one or two different keys on the instruments. The major scale is an abstraction, one of many, that can be used for theoretical explanations. But without hearing melodies they know, they may never get to the scale concept. Students need a little bit of each musical thing at the same time: mechanical techniques of pick and bar, and musical ideas of rhythm, timing, interval, etc. Almost all of us learned the do-re-mi in elementary school.

[Dennis Coelho]

Here's Denny Turner's C6th chart. Take your time with this.

http://dennysguitars.homestead.com/092901_5.html

How much this will help you really depends on how much theory you know, or want to know.

I found this a tremendously helpful contribution when it was first posted 6-7 years ago, but it took a while to sink in.

[Gabe Masry]

Ok, that chart makes sense. I need to sit and hear all of that. I've seen this type of idea called "mode substitution" and it's an interesting idea. I know a lot of guitar players who use pentatonics do this. Good stuff here for learning though! Thanks!!

[David Mason]

Just as a matter of course, I "map" a major scale on whatever tuning I'm using and/or thinking about trying. You can draw up blank tables in any word-processing program, make it like 15 X 13 cells in portrait view so you have room to stick a few extra things like string gauges, then print up a pile. It's extremely useful in visualizing the slants and the arpeggios which the slants bequeath.

[Paul Seager]

Gabriel,

this is a subject close to my heart because I have been trying to figure out the best way to learn scales too. I can't send you charts (I haven't really got any) but I will share the method that I used to pick things up. I use an 8 string instrument so I'll stay with this for this exercise.

If you consider each note on the bottom C string to be a root, you have got the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th notes, twice in vertical line. So I just started adding the intervals behind or infront of those frets until I found a pattern that felt right and was easily movable. I first learnt the scale centring on the "root" fret first and have begun adding a second octave by moving horizontally. I have developed my preferred "route" and once I had the Major, I added the 7th.

This is my "sketch" for a Major and 7th. - I just did this from memory so no guarantees this is correct!



Then I used the similar method, three frets higher to get the minor, pentatonic and blues scale using the bottom A as the root. I don't believe this to be innovative - I am quite sure everyone on this Forum has gone through this!

Practising scales can be insanely boring so I would recommend a good accompanyment package. I have been using Jamie Aebersold's VOLUME 1 - HOW TO PLAY JAZZ & IMPROVISE. I am not a wanna-be jazzer but I cannot resist a jazz blues and this is a good starter. The exercises begin with the F, Eb & D Dorian minor 7th, and then adds the blues and minor pentatonics as the exercises develop. And so on through 7ths etc.

I bought a "job lot" of Aebersold books on eBay and I have enough material to keep me busy for years.

I'd love to hear other player's experiences - and I can't wait for Mike's book!

\ paul

[David Mason]

Playing scales, unencumbered by context, can lead to a lot of mystery, boredom & frustration, in my opinion. If you're playing a scale like:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

the question arises, why? Why are you doing that?
A: To get better... at what? To get better, at playing this:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 (?)

You can certainly pull some technique out of it, if you start changing up the where and how - play 3 notes per string, 2 notes per string, alternating with 4nps, 3nps, ONE note-per-string; play 'em up and down a single string. You can make an interesting game of it, but still - there's a way to play music with them right off the bat, by practicing moving scale fragments which claw their way up and down the fingerboard. I'm just stealing from a old thread here:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... +fragments

You get good at what you practice, and if you practice seven note scales, up and down, it'll sound that way. Scales are more often used in fragments -

1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5, 3-4-5-6
8-7-6-5, 7-6-5-4 etc.
And in threes: 1-2-3, 2-3-4 3-4-5 etc. up and down:
6-7-8, 5-6-7, 4-5-6 etc.

4-3-2-1, 6-5-4-3, 5-4-3-2, 7-6-5-4, 9-8-7-6 etc.

Chord arpeggios, touched on above, are critically important. In threes and fours:
1-3-5, 2-4-6, 3-5-7, 4-6-8 up and down backwards and forwards. 1-3-5-7, 2-4-6-8, 3-5-7-9 etc

There's always four permutations. The fragments can rise or fall within themselves, and the movement of the fragments can be up or down. It never hurts to repeat one once in a while.

If you listen to melodic music, you will hear the fragments above in hundreds of places. Just working through one scale using all the possible combinations can take weeks. And then there's the five note fragments and the eight note ones, and.... chord arpeggios using altered and five-and-six note chords, and...

There's some obvious shortcuts in the examples above, but working through ALL these yourself is good are gold.

Three and four note ascending "bits" - and the bits ascend too;

three and four note ascending bits, and the bits descend;

three and four note descending bits, and the bits descend;

three and four note descending bits, and the bits ascend.

Did someone say they all need to be eighth notes, or there can't be any rests? Oh! Can they be played up and down single strings, or across the neck with as little verticality as possible? Or diagonally up & across, and down and across? Uh-oh. And also check out Christopher Woitach's post in the above thread, nine MORE things to get better with... this stuff is pretty much like a bottomless pit, and/or an ascending stairway, with a least a hopeful bit of glitter dust glued to the macaroni.

Or we can just insert the Scale Brain Module:

[Gabe Masry]

Wow, lots of great info here! Thanks guys!

That chart is driving me nuts! At one point I feel like I totally get it and moments later I'm looking at it like...what?? Haha. There's just a ton of info on there and I plan to work through it. Any tips on tackling it would be great

As for the lesson from the 8 string, I didn't totally get it to be honest. I appreciate the help though so I plan to read through it five more times and I'm sure ill get it.

And for the last post, I have played guitar for 25 years and have been through all of the different ways of navigating scales. The problem I have now is that I don't know where the scales exist across the board. Once I know the scales I can play them in musical context. I've never been one to sit and run up and down scales. I too believe that you get good at what you practice so I try very hard to make everything that I do as musical as possible. No one wants to hear someone practice scales over a song at a gig!!

Again, thanks guys! You all rock!!

[Gabe Masry]

Ok, so I finally had some time to sit with that C6 chart in front of me and a guitar in my lap. Really cool stuff there! For one, there is a tune that I've been playing along with that has an Em7b5 chord that I've just been playing the high E string at the 12th. I've found, (if I'm reading that chart correctly) that if I bar the 10th fret I get the sound of that chord. (I only really use the top 4 strings, but sounds pretty close to me).

I still want to know many inversions and spots to find each chord, but for now this just opened up a few more things for me.

It's funny, I can't take my own advice. A friend of mine asked me recently about playing standard guitar - "I know chords really well, I want to learn to solo. How should I start?" My reply was, "Play chord tones. They're never wrong notes. Find scales after you are comfortable with this." What do I do when trying to learn this instrument? Learn a few chords and immediately say, "I need to learn scales!!" haha, I'm such a hypocrite!

[Denny Turner]

Gabriel,

That full chart is a map of all the "houses on C street" (all the 'harmonic aka common' scales for root note C); But in the right margin of the chart page is a link to a chart menu that isolates & presents each scale quality by iteself, uncluttered by all the scales / chords of the whole neighborhood chart. Here's that link too:
http://dennysguitars.homestead.com/ionian1.html

Once you learn where the scale boxes are for the 7 qualities for root note C; Then it's just a matter of moving the "whole neighborhood" chart
/ template up or down the neck for any root note becoming the Homebase fret position for the whole neighborhood chart / template for that root note; Just like moving a spanish guitar's barre chord (and it's accompanying scales) up and down the neck to place the barre chord to the desired root note. Ie. on the steel guitar it stands to reason that if Cm7 box is located 3 frets above the C "homebase", then Dm7 is also located 3 frets above D "homebase". I envision the scale / chord quality positions for any root note to be relative to the root's I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII; Meaning (example) that the Maj7 for any root will always be at that root's V & IV frets / box position; After all, the scale notes of CMaj7 are the very same notes as G7!

At 7:30 AM and still not gone to bed yet, I hope the above is not as fuzzy as my brain is right now.

[Denny Turner]

Gabriel,

(if I'm reading that chart correctly) that if I bar the 10th fret I get the sound of that chord (Em7b5).

Yessir ....you're reading it right!

And what's neat about harmonic scales (aka "church" modes) is that if any other extension note(s) is to be added / voiced, then they're sitting right there in that half diminished / m7b9b6b5 box, ....assuming the rest of the band is also playing harmonic, ....but even if they're playing an inharmonic note for tension then you just don't play the tension note, or use behind the bar string bending to pull the note that's a half step below the inharmonic note up to the inharmonic note!

[David Matzenik]

I tire of scales pretty quickly too. However, I think its worth running through the scales of any piece of music one likes, before practicing the overall piece. If for no other reason, it helps to establish the fretboard in one's mind.

[Denny Turner]

I might add that, I've found it virtually impossible for me to memorize the chart ever since discovering the chart's content about 11 years ago, ...BUT I found it quite easy to memorize each modes (aka chord / scale quality) position relative to the Homebase's I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII frets. In other words, per the chart, if I'm tuned C6 and playing in the key of C, then I know that the Cmin7 box is located at bIII + IV frets, .....and CMaj7 box is located at V + IV frets, ...etc etc. Minor signature chords ...many are partials... are always located at the downscale fret in their box, and Major signature chords ...many are partials... are always located at the upscale fret in their box; So moving to a signature chord puts you right in the box knowing that the remaing notes of minor signature chords are 2 frets upscale, while the remaining notes of a Major signature chords are downscale 2 frets. The chart shows these relationships well and easy.

[Bill McCloskey]

Many thanks to Denny for the work he has done on these charts and his course. It has opened up a lot of understanding for me.

One suggestion, I find looking at charts to be a hard way to learn. I used Denny's charts with a keyboard. I find plucking out the chords and scales on the keyboard and then applying them Denny's charts made it all come together for me.