INTRO FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The founder of justinguitar.com lends GT his insight as one of the world’s most successful guitar teachers. This Month: Scale Routines.
Using scales to make music is more than just choosing the right one. But how does one go about practising scales, and should you bother?
Using my favourite analogy, if music is a language then scales are alphabets. With our English alphabet we can make words from many languages, though each will have quirks particular to its dialect. Other languages are narrower in use, the Mkhedruli language of Georgia for instance, which can be understood in much more limited areas.
In music, the Major scale can be used in many different styles and ways, whereas a more exotic scale like the Phrygian Dominant is usually used in a specific situation. Bear with me while we take it a step further…
If you become fluent in English, does it mean you can speak French or German, which uses (mostly) the same letters? No, it’s the combinations of letters that changes, and the pronunciation. Some scales fit well in a specific style and others in a more general sense, but people who master one style often find it leaves an ‘accent’ when they try to play others.
The point is that the words matter the most. You can’t travel somewhere new and start saying the alphabet. Yo learn words and phrases and with them you would be communicating. In music, the words are the licks and phrases. Play a blues lick and people know you’re ‘speaking’ blues. But play a Minor Pentatonic up and down, and it could be anything.
Yes, the analogy has holes when you keep prodding it, but it’s a great way to develop your strategy for learning music. When I was the admissions guy at The Guitar Institute, some young dude would come in and show that they knew all the scale patterns… but couldn’t make music if their life depended on it. And I met others who knew no scales at all, but knew a handful of licks that they could use well. They were making music!
So, licks and phrases - learn them! Great poets use the same words we all use, they just put them together in more beautiful ways. If they made up their own language nobody would understand it. Egdhtg hdgft wrreyu chzhn. Get my point?
So why would guitarists practise scales at all? Well, there are a few good reasons. To understand the grammar of the language, it will help to know the alphabet. Learning scale patterns will help you change and manipulate licks, extend them, be curious with them. It's study, for the mind, more than the fingers.
If you want to express ideas you hear in your musical imagination then practising scales can help build a map for your fingers to find the sound
