Learning scales

[TaylorGirl2008]

I'm very new at learning the guitar. I want to learn fingerstyle...I worship Tommy Emmanuel, Pete Huttlinger, Stephen Bennett, and others.

I recently started taking guitar lessons. My instructor (who studied with Stephen Bennett and is friends with him) wants me to learn to play scales, starting with G (I won't go into my traumas with the G chord here!)

I haven't been able to find aywhere online that has the scale fingerings. I have a Pete Huttlinger DVD but he goes so fast that I can't tell which finger to use when. Lol. Any good websites out there? Youtube wouldn't work for me because I live in a rural area with dial up. I can read TAB pretty well and some standard notation. Thanks for any links, advice, etc!

[Malcolm]

Originally Posted by TaylorGirl2008

I'm very new at learning the guitar. I want to learn fingerstyle...I worship Tommy Emmanuel, Pete Huttlinger, Stephen Bennett, and others.

I recently started taking guitar lessons. My instructor (who studied with Stephen Bennett and is friends with him) wants me to learn to play scales, starting with G (I won't go into my traumas with the G chord here!)

I haven't been able to find aywhere online that has the scale fingerings. I have a Pete Huttlinger DVD but he goes so fast that I can't tell which finger to use when. Lol. Any good websites out there? Youtube wouldn't work for me because I live in a rural area with dial up. I can read TAB pretty well and some standard notation. Thanks for any links, advice, etc!

OK I'm taking you at face value - you want to play scales - not chords.
Go here and print this off.
http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/basic/print.html
Using the Major scale pattern place the 6th string red dot on the 6th string 3rd fret of your guitar fretboard. Two octaves of the G Major scale are waiting for you. The numbers in the pattern are the fingers you are to use to play the notes. Notice it's 1, 2, 3, 4 and you have four fingers. 1 is the index, 2 is the middle finger, 3 is your ring finger and 4 is your little finger.

Walk the Major pattern from the 6th string to the 5th string, 4th string, 3rd string, 2nd string, 1st string -- now turn around and go back down 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th to 6th. You just walked the G Major scale up two octaves and came back down.

G scale was at the 3rd fret, if you started the major pattern at the 5th fret 6th string, notes from the A scale will be waiting for you. B is at the 7th fret, C is at the 8th fret, D is at the 10th fret, E is at the 12th fret and it repeats it's self on up till you run out of frets. Why G at the 3rd fret? What note is located at the 6th string 3rd fret? Yep it's a G note, the A note is at the 5th fret, etc.

Now that was not so bad.

Have fun.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by TaylorGirl2008

... have a Pete Huttlinger DVD but he goes so fast that I can't tell which finger to use when.

Hi TGirl...
Use the Pause button and the single/frame or slow/mo advance to figure them out. They will lay logically, and if you have Pete's DVD there is paperwork with it (if you bought it new).

[Fingerstylist]

Larry, you don't have Huttlinger's Play the Songs of Jim Croce do you? If so, what do you think of it?

[Turtle]

TaylorGirl - you asked for online information on scale fingerings. Try this: http://justinguitar.com/en/SC-001-TheMajorScale.php

[Wolf]

Very interresting link. Always something new to learn!

[815C]

The best advice I can give you about learning scales is to practice them in SLOW MOTION with your hands TOTALLY RELAXED. That's how you are going to get FAST.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Fingerstylist

Larry, you don't have Huttlinger's Play the Songs of Jim Croce do you? If so, what do you think of it?

Hi Fs...
I do not - I have his John Denver stuff (won it in a drawing at his workshop), and it's well done and accurate as to John's style of play.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by TaylorGirl2008

...I recently started taking guitar lessons. My instructor (who studied with Stephen Bennett and is friends with him) wants me to learn to play scales, starting with G (I won't go into my traumas with the G chord here!)

Hi TGirl...
I was rethinking your original post, and agree with your teacher that scale work is immensely helpful to learning and expanding your styling...especially styling of players like Pete Huttlinger, Steven Bennett, Tommy Emmanuel, or any other of the proficient fingerstylists out there.

If there is a great area of weakness I find in intermediate to advanced players who have hit the wall who come to me for lessons or coaching it is in this area. And they need to learn scale degrees not just note names.

[jayhawk]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi TGirl...
And they need to learn scale degrees not just note names.

Larry

Silly question, what do you mean by scale degrees?

thanks

Jack

[DerLan7]

Jack, the Degrees refer to the scales notes. For instance, in the C major scale, C would be the 1st degree, D the second and so on.

[jayhawk]

Originally Posted by DerLan7

Jack, the Degrees refer to the scales notes. For instance, in the C major scale, C would be the 1st degree, D the second and so on.

OK, I understand this. Now, the next question, why do I care about knowing the degrees as opposed to knowing the note names? (sorry if this is a basic question, but Music Appreciation sums up the total formal musical training I have had)

Jack

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

OK, I understand this. Now, the next question, why do I care about knowing the degrees as opposed to knowing the note names? (sorry if this is a basic question, but Music Appreciation sums up the total formal musical training I have had)

Hi Jack...
If you memorize and apply scale degree to each scale, it is quicker to transpose on the fly, and to pickup/learn melodies and chord progressions.

This is particularly true of difficult passages...it's easier to remember the numbers than the notes - and then they apply to whatever key the song is in (I play some songs in three different keys depending on who I'm playing with).

Scale degree as it applies to chord progressions...
I often turn to other musicians while we are playing who know scale degree and say things like ''two, five, one'' and they immediately know which chords to play in the sequence.

In a major key, normally triad-formed-chords with the bass note I, IV, V are major chords, and triads with bass notes ii, iii, & vi are minor, while vii° is half-diminished (and they are annotated with capital roman numerals for Major, lower case for minor).

Applied to melody or harmony...
If I'm listening to and charting a song which I'm learning or transcribing, I jot melodies down in scale degree (just straight alpha numerics as opposed to roman numerals) and chart them later into the appropriate key. I can also figure out the chords often by listening to the bass note of a chord in relation to the scale...if I know the scale degree I can draw quick conclusions about what chord it is.

In order to apply notation, you have to know the key before you do all the work. If you know scale degree you can figure it out in any key.

I've often attended church conferences where we hear a chorus we love and would like to learn, and if I don't have my Zoom H2 along to record it, my wife jots the lyrics down and I get the chord progression in scale degree. Then I grab the melody in scale degree. It's amazing how fast one can do this...

Even if I have the H2, I still jot out the chord progression later in numerals and the melody in alpha numeric scale degree.

[Jeff M]

TaylorGirl.
If you are interested in music theory for guitar (and if you are looking into scales, you are already delving into it), you may want to check out the "Skeptical Guitars" series of books;
http://www.skepticalguitarist.com/

Well written, understandable, funny.
He goes into things like scale degrees, chord progressions, etc.

For these topics, probably want to start with;
http://www.skepticalguitarist.com/volume1.htm

[Ryler]

I've got two of Bruce Emery's books, the Fingerstyle Guitar from Scratch one and the Travis picking one. Both are as Jeff said, funny and well-written.