The Steel Guitar Forum

I had a rather blunt argument with a lead guitarist a few nights ago about the proper way to practice playing any instrument. I am from the old school that to build a proper house one has to start with a very strong foundation and everything stems from that. By this, I mean learning scales. Not just the major scales such as C Major and G Major, but all the Harmonic Minors, Melodic Minors, Contrary Motions, and Chromatic Scales.

I have been in the habit of doing this on a daily basis since I was in my early twenties and still do it constantly with my steel. My guitar friend thinks I am on a life long dumb out and need to get real.

To my way of thinking, it’s because of my practicing those boring scales, I have no problem with tuning, chord work in all the scales, the proper progressions and can hear an out of tune instrument within two bars.

How many of you guys practice scales on your steel all the time or only once in a while or, never?

Confession time:

I wouldn't know a scale even if I tripped over one

I would love to play more scales. Is there a "30-day Lap Steel Workout" book? Perhaps I should write one.

It's good to know full scales so you can zip around flashily and impress chicks (so I'm told ), but scale fragments are more interesting and musical in content, so they tend to keep you going longer. This is an abbreviated version of what I give my students:
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1= do, 2 = re, 3 = me, 4 = fa, 5 = so, 6 = la, 7 = ti, 8 = do
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1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5, 3-4-5-6, 4-5-6-7, 5-6-7-8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's also useful to practice, 5, 6, and 7 note sequences to get you used to reversing directions and playing phrases that pick up in the middle and squirt off in another direction - this is good for forcing you to work out picking choices also. Eventually you want to start making up your own 8, 12, even 16-beat sequences that move through the scale, with rests and half-notes built in.

having an arguement with someone over the validity of playing scales, even in the the most simplistic structure , is like argueing with a Chimpanzee.

Musicians that are playing Instruments, any Instrument , but don't ever relate to any form of scales ,are bypassing the most fundemental step in the theory behind the music.

I have found that most players who tell me they do not play out of scales or scale structures actually are and just didn't realize it until someone went backwards and showed them what they were doing, connecting the dots if you will.

A musician not learning ANY scales ( even short little segments) and how to apply the theory of them is like joining the Army and bypassing bootcamp.

IF you can play the Orange Blossom Special phrase, you can play scales, uh... make that, you ARE playing scales.

Tony I agree with you on the foundation. I try to practice my scales as much as I can. It helps me get my old fingers working. I don't know that many unfortunately, but you are right about building things around scales. Nothing wrong with working on them as much as one can. David you have a good theory that you teach. I may work that in for myself. I agree with Les also though that it's not worth the argument though.

My next purchase is gonna be Joe Wright's big scale course book...

Practicing just scales is pretty boring. You learn the scales, sure, but you wind up just doing those scales. And then, you have to figure out where to use them! Another method of learning scales is practicing songs that use a lot of scales. It's far more enjoyable, and you're learning where and how they fit in a song at the same time. Listed below are a few of the songs that I've employed.

For major scales, you can use stuff like...

Nola
Sailor's Hornpipe (the "Popeye" theme)
Arkansas Traveler
Groovy Kind of Love
Lover's Concerto (Bach's "Minuet in G")

For minor scales, try stuff like these...

Theme from "The Munsters"
Black Magic Woman
St. Louis Blues
Theme from "Gilligan's Island"
Theme from "Zorba The Greek" (If I Were A Rich Man)

These songs don't cover all the scales, but they help you learn how scales are employed in songs most everyone has heard, and they're just a little bit easier and more enjoyable work on that the "exercises" most teachers use. IMHO, practicing (to be most effective), should be done mostly in a musical context, and not just as a endless series of blind exercises.

Learning the theory behind how various scales are constructed is more important than running scales up and down the neck...unless you do it for exercise or technique. A Solo is built around a variety intervals, and not necessarly of one particular scale.

Music is another form of communication, like a foreign language. Scales are part of the vocabulary and syntax of the language of music.

If someone's satisfied getting just to the point in Spanish of being able to communicate and understand the waitress at the Mexican restaurant, the wrangler at the horse barn, or the guys working roofing or contracting around your house, he would only need to learn basic conversational espanol which can be phonetically taught, for all intents and purposes.

But if he wanted to master the language, he'd have to submerse himself in the rules of grammar, syntax, declensions, et al. ad infinitum. And to write convincingly in Spanish would require even more involvement.

Your guitarist friend has an opinion typical of people who want, or only need, to get to just a certain level of communication in the musical language, like only knowing enough to order food in a Mexican restaurant, or tell the workmen where to pour the concrete. He probably wouldn't know what the Mexicans were saying about him behind his back.

And schooled musicians would be playing things he could hear but couldn't begin to explain. I could be wrong, though. He could be a non-intellectual genius. But then he probably wouldn't argue with ya about the value of scalar knowledge, he just wouldn't seek it out personally.

Dittoes about what Tom C. said. Scales are only a small part of the language. Intervals, chord constructions, leading tones, etc. etc. etc................ good grief!

I don't practice my scales like I used to years ago because I don't need to I guess. The thing that kinda turned a light on for me was seeing that scales are just chord tones and vice versa. It never ceases to amaze me how a great players work is mostly the basic scale/chord stuff and it's the way they phrase it against the chord progression and groove. I'm a cronic cover musician and can't seem to stop trying to learn songs note for note. It teaches me phrasing I guess and I can see what the player was probably using as far as scale/chords under the phrasing.

An aspect of scales that a fabulous music teacher once made me aware of is the concept of 'tension and release' notes. In the major scale the release notes would be the 1rst , 3rd , 5th , (b7th) ,, the tension notes being the 2nd , 4th , b5th , 6th , maj7th. He had me just slowly listen to the sound of a note, say the 2nd, and hear how it wants to resolve either up to the 3rd or down to the 1rst,,or the 4th how it wants to resolve dwn to the 3rd or up to the 5th,,the maj7th creating tension until it finishes up to the 1rst and so on. some scales here

custom steel / recordings

I can see the value in learning scales as far as mobility goes, but I just never have had a need to, so I haven't. On 6-string, mandolin, bass etc. I (like a lot of others) play out of positions based on chord forms, or the pentatonic "box" and blues "box".

We may be missing something - but on the other hand, it hasn't really limited my ability to play in bands, jams, etc. If I was jamming with someone and they said "you need to play a C harmonic minor here" I'd be stuck...but it's never happened.

OTOH, I *have* been in jams with "schooled" players who could not improvise to save their lives - if you could not tell them what scale to play a fragment of, they simply had to stop.

It's seemed to me that most "ear" players don't learn scales (they might know they are playing parts of scales, but don't know what to call them) - which seems to include most rock/blues/country guitar, banjo, bass, mandolin and dobro players.

Scale studies, on the other hand, seem to be essential for most jazz and classical guitarists, keyboard players....and a lot of steel players. But I've noticed a lot of steel players who came from 6-string land often don't know/play scales...nor do they know much music theory, me included.

Some players claim it's absolutely essential, but others have played for years with little scale knowledge at all. It's just a different approach - not wrong (there should be no "wrong" way to learn music) , just different.

Julian Tharpe told me "if it sounds good it ain't wrong"!

Some people are afraid of anything that sounds like it resembles music theory. The word "scale" is one of those words that scares people. It shouldn't.

A scale is simply the linear sequence of all the notes in one key. It's hard to play any music at all without playing pieces of scales. All of the popular music forms of today are based on scales.

Practicing a scale is practicing playing in one key. If you practice an ascending or descending line in the key of G, you are practicing a scale. You don't have to know which note of the scale is an F#, but you do have to know which frets to play on which string to sound right in the key of G. Those positions (fret + string) are your G scale.

I wrote a piece of music once that didn't use any scales. Here's a recording of it: http://soundhost.net/b0b/dothing.mp3

I don't expect to hear it on the radio any time soon.

I can see the value in learning scales as far as mobility goes, but I just never have had a need to, so I haven't. On 6-string, mandolin, bass etc. I (like a lot of others) play out of positions based on chord forms, or the pentatonic "box" and blues "box".

I don't see any difference between a pentatonic "box" and a pentatonic "scale". If it floats your boat to call a scale a "box", I guess that's okay. But it's really just a different lingo for the same idea.

Bob! I love it!!! Can you Tab it? What Keys are it in???
Seriously...scales and chords if you ain't doin one you must be doing the other in some form!!!!
There just isn't any shortcuts are there!!!!!!!

Years back on the 6 string I began practicing 3 different scales taken off of the 6th string playing across the neck, using 4 fingers. Make that many years back when I was about 16.

I would play the patterns across the neck ascending and descending then move up 1 fret and do it all again and then another fret.

My rule was to play the exercises up and down the neck without making a fingering mistake, if I did I had to start over. Well I doubt I ever madde it up and back without a mistake but I did try and do this for maybe 10 minutes of so.

then I woud move to extended positons, play the root scale off the 6th string then the 4th and 5th scales off the 5th string going across the neck using 4 fingers.

Now , what has this done for me ? Well for one thing it made me a 4 finger Guitar player rather than a 3 finger Guitar player, it has made me well aware of fundemental NOTES across the fretboard, I don't know there names off the top of my head but I do know the positions, even if I still make mistakes when I play.

My 4 finger dextirety was very good for many years ( now I'm having left hand issues) and set the ground work for much of my playng style today.

Steel ? Ok..

What I work now on is alternate picking of 4 note scales T,2,T,2 out of the root postion 8th string up and down the fretboard just like the 6 string.

Boring is all get go..but if you can get yourself to do 5 or 10 minutes every day for 30 days, you will be a different player at the end of the 30 days.

Like b0b says, the word Scales implys boredom and theory..but it's not gonna kill ya...they are exercises. If you listen while you are playing you may just hear pieces of intervals that sound common and familiar.

tp

I practice scales on the steel and 6 string sometimes but only to improve technique. I'm lucky to have a fairly good ear so when playing live I just play what comes - I find that much more fun than trying to analyse chord changes for a solo so as to create tension...or I'm gonna play into the third of that chord and let it ring then play the minor scale with a natural 7th of the next change and so on....that's no fun for me.
Everyone is different, some players need to rely more heavily on theory than others,and some players can sound as good and better using nothing but their ear.

I have to say that even though practicing, and of course learning, scales and living my musical career practicing them rigidly, I feel that it has made me a much better, if not a more complete, musician. It is pretty tough to throw me something that sits me back on my haunches with trying to figure out what a band leader wants.

I played for almost 14 months with a big band style dance band and the old band leader knew his music theory backwards, frontwards and sideways. When he asked us for something he used nothing but music theory terminology to let us know what he wanted. Being that I was primarily in a back up role, it was my knowledge of all ranges of scales that kept me on board.

Even though I am relatively new to the steel guitar, my scale practice along with more than little inkling of knowledge of what is behind the theory of scales, has helped me tons in my learning how far I can push my instrument. It is also because of my rigid practice of all the scales, I know exactly what sound I am going after and what it will and will not work with.

In short, working with or continuously practising scales may be as boring as counting tooth picks, but it does make me a much better musician.

Once you get the message, it's time to hang up the phone.

There is no reason on earth NOT to play them.

Drew

One reason a lot of really good players don't practice scales is this: No one wants to hear them!!

Practice them all you want but leave 'em at home when you perform. An example:

From time to time, we'll do a Santana song, maybe Black Magic Woman or Smooth, or another of his Dorian excursions. I can hear a mile away somebody just playing a Dorian scale, as opposed to playing music. An analogy: typing is good, typing fast is better, writing a good story for someone to read and enjoy is best.

If one really wants to practice scales, more power to him. Most musicians can get by quite well on just the major scale, moving it up or down to get the 7 major modes, but scales are only a tool, they are not the finished product. JP

I've done my share of scale exercises, but to me, they're just that - exercises. I think a certain amount is useful to train the fingers, as long as one doesn't get too used to those particular linear scale patterns. I'm much more interested in playing songs, where one plays the notes from various scales in various permutations. To me, the permutations of those notes are where it's at.

The finest jazz guitar player I know, with 50 years of professional experience, seriously took me to task when I started studying with him. I would ask him things like "What scale goes over that change.", and he would go nuts. He also said things like "If it sounds right, it is right, and no amount of scale practicing is gonna teach you that. You need to be able to understand and hear how notes fit, but that linear pattern isn't necessarily important to what you play in a given situation."

This reminds me of a general problem in mathematics - one can model something mathematically, and if it helps you see a pattern, great. But the physical entity being modeled is just that - a physical entity. It would be the same without the mathematical model. Scale patterns and chords mappings are a way to model how the notes are connected to the music, but the music is just there - either you can play it or not.

Don't get me wrong - I'm fully in favor of a reasonable understanding of music theory issues like how scales are formed and played, chords are made and notated, how different note patterns sound against chord progressions, and so on. But I prefer to spend more time playing songs than practicing scales.

Tony wrote:

I would play the patterns across the neck ascending and descending then move up 1/2 fret and do it all again and then another 1/2 fret.

How do you move up 1/2 a fret? Do you mean a half-step, or 1 chromatic note?

yes typo..

move up 1 fret,not a 1/2 fret.

that would be a neat trick moving up 1/2 fret !

good catch

t