Which scales to learn first

The C major scale is easy to categorize because as we see, all the notes are natural, meaning they have no sharps or flats. Skipping these notes allows us to play a condensed version of the scale called a pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is one of the most frequently used scales in rock and pop music. So if you play a C major chord or an A minor chord, this scale will fit perfectly over it.

So we can start on the 2nd fret of the G string and play the same notes. Notice how it has a minor sound? We can even climb back down the scale we can add the B on the 2nd fret of the A string and land on a lower A note on the 5th fret of the low E string.

This is a minor scale. Now if we want to make the pentatonic minor we simply take out a few notes:. It seems like we've just learned lot of information. But the reality is we've just been manipulating one scale! I really recommend learning the major scale very thoroughly, because then all of these changes I'm recommending will seem not complicated at all.

Some individuals say that position is where you are on the neck some others say position to show various ways of playing the same scale. The unfortunately truth is, there are a lot of ways to play the same thing on the guitar. So we need to learn our instrument to figure out where these notes lie.

I would learn one position first. When practicing scales on guitar, as soon as you have learned to play a scale position more or less, hook up a metronome and practice them ascending and descending. Start slow and play on the click or play two notes every click and work your way up and down these scales in a straightforward fashion.

Now try to play the same scales, ascending and then descending, but switch up the rhythm so that you aren't playing it steadly, maybe sometimes you play eighth notes, sometimes you play quarter notes. It will provide scale exercises for each hand separately and both hands together, as well as fingering tips.

The fingering is the same premise for all scales, with the crossing over being the same on each hand, just on different notes i. Most piano teachers require their students to learn the 12 major scales in the following order:.

You want to learn the ones with natural keys before mastering ones with sharps or flats. Practice your scales slowly, one hand at a time, before putting both hands together.

There are 12 natural minor scales that you should start practicing next. In order, they are:. Major and natural minor scales are the building blocks of learning to play the piano.

There are other types of scales that advanced piano students may wish to study, including harmonic and melodic. In harmonic minor scales , the seventh scale degree note is raised by just a half step. Where there is harmony, there must be melody.

Next, we have melodic minor scales , also called jazz minor scales. These are somewhat different and not vital for beginners to master. Essentially, the ascending form of a melodic minor scale involves raising the sixth and seventh scale degrees a half step. The descending form of a melodic minor scale involves lowering the sixth and seventh scale degrees a half step to their original pitches i.

Even more advanced piano students can get into the lesser-known scales : chromatic scales, piano blues scales, pentatonic scales and whole tone scales. But how do you know where to begin? I think understanding this sort of concept is the best place to start in understanding what scale you should use.

Hi GO, Thanks for this site I think its quite valuable. My question is just looking at the pentatonic finger pattern is straight forward for the 6th string, but Im not understanding the 2nd pattern on the 5th string.

Are they meant to be tonally different? My example if you use the first pattern and say just the first four notes at C 8th Fret and then use the 2nd pattern on C 3 Fret 5th string the scale is not the same note wise is there a quick explanation for this, or could you please tell me what im missing. You would probably be best to use them to build your alternate picking speed. Practice the scales ascending and descending as well as the sequences of the scales I mentioned.

To build speed you will want to practice them with a metronome. Start at a comfortable speed and then increment the metronome by maybe 4bpm increments as you slowly get faster. Doing this as a technique exercise will have the added benefit of having learned the scales which you can then go on to learn to form musical phrases and solos with.

Something else to keep in mind is there are different techniques that people build speed with. What finger do I have to use in scaling? Iam having difficulty in guitar scaling even i practise, my fingers are to close to each other specially my middle and ring finger. What shuold i do to make my fingers more comfortable or to make make my scaling easier? Thank you:. Yes, I would recommend using all 4 fingers. I really do think the solution here is more practice.

Theres all sorts of variations on these sorts of exercises like moving up ad down each string at a time with them. What I want to know is how the music theory applies to making my own music. For example, scales; people say this helps out in dexterity and making solos. But how should I approach in learning scales?

Should I just remember where to place fingers? Firstly, for rock and pop music I would recommend learning all 6 of the scales presented above in the order they are presented. Once you have a good understanding of that look at the article on the natural minor scale to see the chords formed from this scale.

You should also understand how these chords change if you are in different keys i. In terms of how to go about learning these scales, initially learn where to place the fingers for a scale and to play it ascending and descending, then practice this with great repetition. Providing you are listening carefully to how this sounds while you are practicing, the sound of the scales will start to ingrain.

You should then spend time, just experimenting with the notes of the scale to come up with phrases that sound good to you. As you go further with this, you will be able to maintain this as a continuous, somewhat spontaneous process. Then apply this over relevant backing tracks. In terms of tackling these sorts of scales, I really would make sure you have good improv skills over backing tracks of the 6 scales presented above first.

You should have also learned the other modes of the major scale and the major pentatonic that are not part of the 6 presented above. Reason being is these scales will be easier to learn to phrase with and I believe are a necessary first step.

The Phrygian dominant which has a real flamenco sort of sound and is the fifth mode of the harmonic minor. The altered dominant scale, used in jazz over alter dominant chords and is the 7th mode of the ascending melodic minor scale.

I get the red dot is the root note, but why are there 2 or 3 root notes on every scale? How do I know what order the play the notes in and are all dots notes I play for a minor pentatonic scale, which is only supposed to have 5 notes per octave? Wow, this is confusing…. In terms of the order of the notes. Start by practicing the scale ascending and descending. Start on the bottom root note red dot and then ascend up the notes to the highest note. Then descend back down to the bottom, then ascend to the original bottom red dot again.

For scales where the red dot is the bottom note simply start at the bottom and then ascend all the way up then back down again. I really do understand these scales and i sure know how to play them. Now that you know how to play the scales, first step you should experiment with them a bit to start to find phrases you like. Then move on to experimenting with them over backing tracks.

I might end up putting some backing tracks on this site, but you could search youtube for backing tracks relevant to each scale. In terms of understanding which chord progressions you can use a scale to solo over, I think related to this it is very important to understand how to form chords from scales, as described in my article on this. I think understanding this sort of concept is the best place to start in understanding what chord progressions you can use a scale over. I know — total fool!!!!

Anyway, Ive looked at many sites and some are better than others yours being excellent, obviously! Other sites say learn the theory and the notes on the guitar. I need some structure for the learning process and would be VERY grateful if you could help. Should I shelve everything but scales for a while?? A lot of this material is more designed for a player who has put in a bit of practice and has some basic coordination at the instrument and wants to start looking more at solos and starting to improvise.

Having said that, learning these scales and the theory ideas presented early will still be very valuable. Starting out, I would recommend to tackle a number of directions at once, both rhythm and single note stuff.

In terms of rhythm, learning open chords and developing the ability to change between them quickly enough to strum songs that use them is a good start. You can also learn hard rock progressions with power chords and distortion early too. After all this you can start to move into barre chords and further material. I would also start single note playing at the same time, learning simple single note riffs and some exercises to develop your coordination. It sounds like you would benefit from a beginners guitar course to give you the structure your looking for.

Thank you for your efforts. I found your scales very helpful. A few weeks ago, I started with some basic cords and rhythms. These scales you have taken the time to layout seem like a natural next step. Thanks again. What happens as you move higher up the guitar? The pictures only show 4 frets on the guitar, does the scale just repeat as you move up? Thanks for any help. I bookmarked your site six months ago when I decided to start learning guitar. Here I am finally taking on the ordeal and you are making it a lot easier for me.

My problem is a wayward pinkie. I have been watching what it does when I play and it sticks off in awkward positions or follows my ring finger around like a real basket case. I also find that I naturally fret with the side if my pinkie. How can I change that? What is the difference between root on 5th string and root on 6th string? Which scale should I learn?

A lot of finger style does not use these positions as directly as say electric lead guitar, but often mix up scales and chords together, often in open position. I tend to see finger style as probably more complex, and would require a more extensive knowledge of the fretboard than this, but most good finger style players would have all of the above down pat and moved several steps beyond these positions.

I would definitely make sure you have a good mastery of the above as almost a prerequisite for approaching that sort of finger style, and will then have to move beyond that. I had a fantastic teacher right for the first two, who took it upon himself to implement theory into each of our lessons. I learned the pentatonic, minor, and major within the first few months or a year at most of picking up the instrument. There really is nothing like it when it comes to this instrument.

It is a amazing aspect that I think everyone can only benefit from taking a bit of time to learn. Keep playing. I highly recommend backing tracks. It is one of the best parts of my life, 4 years ago, and still today. I find myself imagining solos in my head at times of stress, or out of simple boredom. I may sound corny, or sappy, but I mean every word of it. If even one person reaches this place I have so luckily been graced with, this post will be a success.

The profound nature of my music never ceases to amaze me. I started playing about 5 years ago. It has dawned on me that I am not learning to play guitar, I am learning to play songs. However, I do play every day, and love it dearly. So, here I am, at this great site, and am determined to spend some time every day practicing scales, being retired helps, time is not an issue with me.

Guys i just want to ask if you change the chords you are using that means you should change the scale too base on the chord? Thanks guys. It depends on both the chord progression and your approach to soloing over it. Often all the chords in a progression are formed from the same scale and are in the same key and in this case, you often use the one scale over the whole progression.

Take a look at the backing tracks here for the major scale and the natural minor scale on this site. These are good examples of this and would typically imply the one scale. The backing track Funky SRV on the blues backing tracks page is an example of a track that modulates between A minor and B minor and in this case you will change scale when this occurs.

There are some song that using chords that is not part of the scale i mean for example the chord progression is C G A D so the A chord has c note which is i think not a part of c major or g major scale im very sorry sir im just confused haha it will help me a lot sir if you explain or answer my questionS thank you so much sir im just a beginner sir6.

Mostly Rhythm and I even had my own band together where we got paid. Just because we got paid. How can I over come this fear? I know all the Major 2 Octave Scales up and down the fretboard.

However, when it comes to connecting these together on different strings or jumping up or down a few frets or strings, and still staying in key or hitting the right notes. This baffles me completely. The Blues Pentatonic scales are very easy, but if you just play them every time you do a lead, people and I get bored real fast. Any ideas?? BTW: I am self taught and play mostly by ear. I have done a lot of record copying in my time and ruined a lot of Vinyl records in the process.

Nowadays, you can slow a song down with a Computer, playing it over and over again to pick it apart I hope pointing out this method of using a Computer helps the others who have posted on this site. Not really sure what to advise about nerves. For example if your finding your blues scale easy maybe start the session with simple stuff on that then when your comfortable with move into more variety or challenging stuff. Thats great your blues soloing is coming together.

In order to spice it up a bit you could try a number of things. Get more variety out of your nuances like bending, slides and vibrato. Maybe try landing phrases on chord tones even if they are not in the blues scale. This can make things really interesting and also explore variety with rhythm. I could probably over come the nerves, IF I knew where I was on the fretboard. Playing 2 Octave scales on the 3 or 5th Frets vertically, is very easy.

However, linking these together Horizontally or Diagonally up and down the Fretboard is where I get stuck. This is the kind of jumping around which baffles me. If I move up the Fretboard 2 or 3 Frets on say the 3rd string, I have to know where to go from there to keep things moving. Everything moves up a half step or one Fret. Then things return to normal on the high E String Thin one For Example: taking your Blues Scales and actually extending the pattern s up and down the Fretboard. Like extending the G Major scale from the first position all the way up to the 12 Fret repeating the scale consistently over all the strings at any Fret.

The reverse is also true, starting at the 12th Fret and working backwards toward the nut perhaps playing in a descending order only going from the Low E to the High E strings diagonally. Horizontally, Vertically, or Diagonally. This is exactly what I want to be able to do.

Play in all Keys, 3 Octaves, Diagonally across the Fretboard. This was and will never be my intension. Hi NeverToOld.. I am also facing the same issue while while playing in front of crowd.. I think I also need to practice the same..

Hi … i am finding it very hard to make a melodic solo.. Do yourself a favor, head over to learntoplayitright guitar site.. Can watch the videos as many times as you want and learn at your own pace…. I have learnt more in one month than I have in 25 years of playing…. Great man…a ton of thanks.. Hello, and thank you for the scale diagrams and explanations. I have made up some printable images landscape if anyone wants to put the scales up somewhere I certainly do , the links are;.

Minor Pentatonic and Blues. Natural Minor and Major. Dorian and Mixolydian Modes. Unfortunately the links are not coming up for me. Also, I had to edit the comment for the links to show.

Probably something to do with the formatting of the comment. Google is giving the error: The requested URL was not found on this server when I try to visit the images. The top string on the diagrams is the high E string and the bottom is the low E string. You can see the bottom strings are thicker on the diagram. AND, why oh why is there multiple roots for the scale without explain why that is??

It is confusing as hell to have multiple red dots without understanding why. This just opened all new soloing doors for me! Very good article! Pro tip for people learning these scales: Do them in triplets , , , etc. Thank you for this. But I have one question how are scales related to chords. I saw one man play chords on keys which are part of the minor pentatonic.

Thanks for being the first among those dozens I have read to realize that maybe some of your readers may not already understand these fundamentals.. From an eighty year old. Pls help me. Wow, this really helped me out, ive been going for years not sure quite how scales work and reading this suddenly made it click for me, ive been playing the scales over some of the backing tracks and its so fun!

This is a great website and will be a resource for me as I master these scales. One question, I am wondering where I can learn some lead phrasing examples of these, such as the mixolydian scale, even in popular music.

And some examples of blending two different scales such as natural minor and blues….. Much to learn!

I want to know what order I should learn scales to play guitar. I want that order based on which scale has the most structure to which has the lowest amount of structure. I have recently switched guitar instructors just to see how this one teaches. I have a disagreement over which scales should be taught first.

This goes back to how you learn anything in life. By the way new instructor does not necessarily seem different than the previous instructor which gives me doubt on guitar instructors today. But getting back to my point anything you learn in life you are usually taught structure before you can do improvisation. You must teach a child how to ride a bike the normal way before that child can do tricks on the bike when they get older like a ghost rider or whatever you want to call it.

It feels like I am being taught backwards. I read in a guitar blog the major scale teaches you how songs are built and how to harmonize and chord tones which the blog said any good solo has. I did that briefly with that instructor but no that long maybe two weeks. I also was not taught complete songs. These instructors should have brought in songs sheets from popular guitar music.

My new instructor is teaching me how to play more than one scale off a blues chord progression particularly major pentatonic. My basic point is that the guitar instructors I have while they know rock music they seem to want to be more influenced by the blues. When I talk to my instructor he has a loose interpretation of what is popular music. I would rather learn from a one on one instructor than from a program on the Internet.

I live in a big city and after going with an instructor for a year and a half tried a second and third instructor. I try learning songs on YouTube and alway one thing that get me confused. I feel like the blues can be really awesome to play if I was taught music in the right order.

That does not mean it is the backbone of teaching guitar music. You should learn the blues eventually but like I said in the right order. They seem to have guilt over the fact that alot of music was stolen from blacks which is true. But that does not mean it is suppose to be taught first.

It goes back to how most people learn anything in life structure then improvisation. My new instructor saw that I had learned all the shapes to a minor pentatonic scale and gave me the major pentatonic shapes to the that blues scale which I am now mixing into my solos. I had just had my first lesson with my new instructor. But I feel I will never learn to be a decent guitar player because I feel I am being taught backwards.

Do you have any advice? To reiterate I feel like I am not getting the most out of my abilities with my previous instructor. The new one who I have had one lesson with so far seems to be more influenced by the blues too. Neither seems to be as influenced by rock. I understand that Rolling Stones and ACDC used minor pentatonic scale but that does not mean it should be taught first.

Like I said structure before improvisation. I want to get the most out of my ability and be melodic. I do believe that blues is the foundation of a lot of learning popular guitar and the foundation of rock. When I used to teach I always had my students learn blues as well as what they were interested in. I believe it is a good way to make your soloing sound musical in a short amount of time.

So on that point I tend to agree with your previous instructors. In terms of scales, I suggest people learn them in the order presented above.

By starting with the pentatonic and blues scale, it is a lot harder for a phrase in your soloing not to sound good than it is with scales like the major scale. You are right that there is a lot of theory around the major scale in terms of the structure of chords and chord progressions and I think this is also good to study that too.

I would then develop my phrasing with the scales and my understanding of the theory at the same time. Or have some link at the top. I appreciate the diagrams. I play most of these but never knew the names of the progressions.

I have always seen patterns not chord structures. When you lock into the patterns you can play any of these on any note. I think for beginners, learn where the notes are on the neck by walking them up and down on each fret and realize they are exactly the same as each note on a piano keyboard. Then even a basic chord structure can be moved up and down the neck to create a different chord.

It works with all basic chords but not all will ring true. Find those chords for yourself by moving any basic chord up 1fret at a time until you find the ones that sound right. Lead patterns can be moved up or down anywhere ,you just have to know the root note. But beware Country Western leads, they are structured four frets down beginning and ending on the root note. Good luck and keep playing, I never took a lesson but read everything on music composition I can find.

The root string on the 5th string is a d and not an a like the one pictured to the left? Why are a and d associated with each other? These are two positions for the scale in any key so in the key of D the 5th string root would be at the 5th fret and the 6th string root would be at the 10th fret. Am I suppose to hold it down or capo it? This is a confusing fingering chart. Think about how many comments you have asking you questions.

I got the red dot thing….. Based on which scale you want to use, you overlay this pattern on the starting note anywhere on the fretboard. Looking at the first two diagrams: So for the A scale, the red dot becomes the 5th fret on the 6th string, because that note is A, your root note.

For the D scale, you start on D, which is the 5th fret on the 5th string which is the 2nd diagram. The reason there are two diagrams is because these are the most common: you can find the start of any scale on the bottom two strings. Thanks for making it all so clear.