How to arrange the time to practice scales EFFECTIVELY?

[mrkpower]

I so far practice scales (Major C, G, D, A, E and Harmonic Am) on both their open and second position daily basis. I need about half hour to finish the practice.

My question is: when more and more scales and their positions adding in later on, I certainly can't practice them all together at a time like now. How should I manage the time to practice them effectively?

Thanks!!

[stanron]

It will help if you can stratify levels of learning.

For me the first level is when you first try out the piece, exercise or whatever. You've yet to memorise it and are still trying to connect the separate parts and solve whatever problems you find.

The next level goes from just about being able to do it to being able to do it effortlessly.

The final stage is maintainance. This does not need the same amount of practice time as the other two levels. You might look at it one or two times a week just to make sure you can still do it.

Each piece or exercise you do should go through these, or some similar, stages.

Your regular practice routine should have bits from all levels. Maybe old routines that are now easy would make a good warm up activity, then some level one, level two and finish off with some well rehearsed stuff that you enjoy.

Of course it is possible to leave an exercise unplayed too long, find you are struggling with it and have to go back a stage or two to resurrect it.

[rick-slo]

Personally I spend almost no time on scales - certainly not a half an hour a day. Most of my technical practice comes from within the songs I have in my repertoire. The amount of time devoted to scales depends a lot on goals - lead guitar, jazz, fingerstyle, or some sort of renaissance man?

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by mrkpower

I so far practice scales (Major C, G, D, A, E and Harmonic Am) on both their first and second position daily basis. I need about half hour to finish the practice.

My question is: when more and more scales and positions adding in later on, I certainly can't practice them all at a time like now. How should I arrange the time to practice them effectively?

Thanks!!

Are you asking about efficient scale practice, or efficient time management?

And what do you mean by the first and second positions of those scales?

I recommend Wm Leavitt's Modern Method for Guitar as a resource for learning scales in all positions.

[mrkpower]

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

Are you asking about efficient scale practice, or efficient time management?

And what do you mean by the first and second positions of those scales?

I recommend Wm Leavitt's Modern Method for Guitar as a resource for learning scales in all positions.

I mean for example, if you know Major, Minor and Pentatonic scales in all 12 keys, you probably don't practice them ALL together every time when you practice scales. So, how do you manage your time to practice those scales? (One day for Major, the other day for Minor or how ......?? )

[mrkpower]

Originally Posted by stanron

It will help if you can stratify levels of learning.

For me the first level is when you first try out the piece, exercise or whatever. You've yet to memorise it and are still trying to connect the separate parts and solve whatever problems you find.

The next level goes from just about being able to do it to being able to do it effortlessly.

The final stage is maintainance. This does not need the same amount of practice time as the other two levels. You might look at it one or two times a week just to make sure you can still do it.

Each piece or exercise you do should go through these, or some similar, stages.

Your regular practice routine should have bits from all levels. Maybe old routines that are now easy would make a good warm up activity, then some level one, level two and finish off with some well rehearsed stuff that you enjoy.

Of course it is possible to leave an exercise unplayed too long, find you are struggling with it and have to go back a stage or two to resurrect it.

Thanks Stanron!!

[mc1]

Originally Posted by mrkpower

I mean for example, if you know Major, Minor and Pentatonic scales in all 12 keys, you probably don't practice them ALL together every time when you practice scales. So, how do you manage your time to practice those scales? (One day for Major, the other day for Minor or how ......?? )

if you know them all, you could easily cycle though them in many different ways, such as cycle of fifths, chromatically, etc, for the major, minor, etc scales. this would only take minutes.

running scales bottom to top and back is also only one way of doing scales. using melodic patterns, varying the rhythm, skipping notes, etc, as well as finding all the usable patterns, for example 3 notes per string, are all great exercises.

playing in time to a metronome, getting a good tone, are also important.

to answer your initial question ('How should I manage the time to practice them effectively?"), keep practicing your scales, and use your imagination and desire to figure out how to learn the fretbaord and scales. in a way, all roads lead to the same end, so find a way that doesn't seem tiresome and work away. once you are comfortable with something, it's time to move on.

[815C]

I don't spend much time on scales these days. However, there were a couple decades in my development as a guitarist where I did incorporate scales, modes, and arpeggios into my daily practice. Back when I was a full time musician who practiced a minimum of 6 hours a day, I'd spend about 20% of my practice time on scales, modes, and arpeggios. The rest of the time was spent learning songs, arranging, working on improvisation, etc. When I found myself with a day job and 4 kids, I'd try to run this scale exercise on the days I had time to practice. It proved to be the most efficient use of my time in keeping my chops up. By this time I'd reached a place where learning songs came very quickly and minimal time was required for that - so I choose this exercise and my daily boot camp. These days my kids are grown and I spend almost all my time arranging.

Here's a video I made in which I show an approach I used to play over 400 scale, mode, and arpeggio fingerings in under an hour (it now takes me about 45 minutes to go thru these).

After I got to where I could do this, I wrote the fingerings out in the book I talk about in my video, which ended up being used at Berklee School of Music for awhile and which jazz educator Jamey Aebersold added to his catalog.

I know the practice of scales - and especially modes - gets a lot of bad press on guitar forums. However, knowing these scale, mode, and arpeggio fingerings inside out has really helped me as a guitarist in many ways. I know the fretboard knowledge I've gained from this study has really helped me in arranging fingerstyle guitar pieces. Who would have thought?!

[mrkpower]

Originally Posted by mc1

if you know them all, you could easily cycle though them in many different ways, such as cycle of fifths, chromatically, etc, for the major, minor, etc scales. this would only take minutes.

running scales bottom to top and back is also only one way of doing scales. using melodic patterns, varying the rhythm, skipping notes, etc, as well as finding all the usable patterns, for example 3 notes per string, are all great exercises.

playing in time to a metronome, getting a good tone, are also important.

to answer your initial question ('How should I manage the time to practice them effectively?"), keep practicing your scales, and use your imagination and desire to figure out how to learn the fretbaord and scales. in a way, all roads lead to the same end, so find a way that doesn't seem tiresome and work away. once you are comfortable with something, it's time to move on.

Thanks mc1!!

[EoE]

scales just do them...they great thing about the guitar world is there is actually lees competition. every sax player can read. there are a lot of guitar players but few who are proficient. for example if you can read you can get a gig instantly on a cruise ship. those scales will come easer and quicker just keep at it.

[mrkpower]

Originally Posted by 815C

I don't spend much time on scales these days. However, there were a couple decades in my development as a guitarist where I did incorporate scales, modes, and arpeggios into my daily practice. Back when I was a full time musician who practiced a minimum of 6 hours a day, I'd spend about 20% of my practice time on scales, modes, and arpeggios. The rest of the time was spent learning songs, arranging, working on improvisation, etc. When I found myself with a day job and 4 kids, I'd try to run this scale exercise on the days I had time to practice. It proved to be the most efficient use of my time in keeping my chops up. By this time I'd reached a place where learning songs came very quickly and minimal time was required for that - so I choose this exercise and my daily boot camp. These days my kids are grown and I spend almost all my time arranging.

Here's a video I made in which I show an approach I used to play over 400 scale, mode, and arpeggio fingerings in under an hour (it now takes me about 45 minutes to go thru these).

After I got to where I could do this, I wrote the fingerings out in the book I talk about in my video, which ended up being used at Berklee School of Music for awhile and which jazz educator Jamey Aebersold added to his catalog.

I know the practice of scales - and especially modes - gets a lot of bad press on guitar forums. However, knowing these scale, mode, and arpeggio fingerings inside out has really helped me as a guitarist in many ways. I know the fretboard knowledge I've gained from this study has really helped me in arranging fingerstyle guitar pieces. Who would have thought?!

I appreciate your comments!

[trion12]

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

I recommend Wm Leavitt's Modern Method for Guitar as a resource for learning scales in all positions.

+1

This will get you reading and playing over the instrument and is a good starting point.

It might be worthwhile if the OP told us why they want to learn scales. i.e what are their goals and how do they think learning scales might help and how much effort might be worthwhile expending on this.

The other thing to keep in mind is what it means to "learn" scales.
Personally I have always thought about scales as resource sets which can generate certain moods.

In that context "learning" a scale means ingraining in your head the overall sound of that mood and then learning how to call that mood up when you want it.
"Calling it up" means learning the fingerings for the notes that comprise that resource set all over the instrument so that when you want to generate a certain mood you have learned the fingerings to do it. i.e the mechanics.

Playing the notes up and down in sequence (intervals of a 2nd) is just a first step to getting the mechanics down. You could also practice them in every available interval (i.e 3rds 4ths 5ths 6ths and 7ths) and in every key.

I used to do as part of my daily warmup playing scales in every position. I would vary the daily warmup by changing the key and the interval each day. I found this a good way to warm up and to really learn scales.

Aaron

[mrkpower]

Originally Posted by trion12

It might be worthwhile if the OP told us why they want to learn scales. i.e what are their goals and how do they think learning scales might help and how much effort might be worthwhile expending on this.

Aaron

Most music is based on some type of scale. I would see scales as a tool that helps me with improvisation or might be with song writing in the future. Also, practicing scales helps to improve strength, speed and coordination between left and right hands.

[trion12]

Originally Posted by mrkpower

Most music is based on some type of scale. I would see scales as a tool that helps me with improvisation or might be with song writing in the future. Also, practicing scales helps to improve strength, speed and coordination between left and right hands.

Yup but what I was really getting at was the kind of music you are looking to play/write and your goals as to the desired level of proficiency. Someone who wants to be a full time professional jazz player for example probably needs to spend more time on scales than does someone whose goal is to be an amateur hobbyist singer/songwriter who doesn't improvise.

Aaron

[rick-slo]

The type of music you want to play determines to a large degree the most productive ways to spend time playing the guitar. It's not that uncommon for someone to spend a lot of time on this or that type of exercise and still not being able to play much of interest years later, plus the level of enthusiasm becoming shot. For most people working directly on actual tunes is the best way to go.