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Old 05-29-2018, 09:18 AM
trueviper trueviper is offline
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Default Learning Guitar Scales.

I took up guitar a few years ago and am now learning songs strumming open chords. Every day I also practise frett walking and finger picking and I am making good progress What I would eventually like to do is play finger picking folk blues, playing covers and creating my own compositions in a similar way that Bert Jansch used to play. Bert is a big influence of mine and I love that kind of sound.

Once I am proficient at frett walking I would like to learn scales in order to achieve what I mentioned above so what I would like to ask is which scales should I learn? I don't want to learn scales for the sake of being able to play them but to use them to make music so is there a standard one to learn first or would I only need to learn a few of them? Any advice would be appreciated.
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Old 05-29-2018, 10:52 AM
WonderMonkey WonderMonkey is offline
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I would look to what kind of songs you like to play or want to learn. Usually, there is a main scale that is associated with that genre. That is where I'd start.
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Old 05-29-2018, 04:46 PM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by trueviper View Post
I took up guitar a few years ago and am now learning songs strumming open chords. Every day I also practise frett walking and finger picking and I am making good progress What I would eventually like to do is play finger picking folk blues, playing covers and creating my own compositions in a similar way that Bert Jansch used to play. Bert is a big influence of mine and I love that kind of sound.

Once I am proficient at frett walking I would like to learn scales in order to achieve what I mentioned above so what I would like to ask is which scales should I learn? I don't want to learn scales for the sake of being able to play them but to use them to make music so is there a standard one to learn first or would I only need to learn a few of them? Any advice would be appreciated.
Bert's a big influence of mine too.

Scales for his music? Don't learn scales. Learn chords - all over the fretboard.

Especially: add9s, m(add9)s, min7s, maj7s, 6ths, 9ths, 13ths. But not just the standard jazz voicings: learn inversions, and learn how to form them by combining open strings with fretted notes above fret 5. (I.e., not barre chords - he could obviously play barre chords, but rarely used them.)

Bert almost certainly didn't know the theory behind them all, but he definitely knew all those chords and more.

The best demonstration of his phenomenal chord knowledge was this track, on his first album (1965, btw, not 1964):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAT5T1lj6WE

I'm pretty sure he never practised scales (except maybe when he had piano lessons aged 7 or so, for a few weeks). He wrote all his music by ear and constant experimentation. He practised just about everything but scales.

You should also seek out his own influences, and make them yours: Big Bill Broonzy, Davy Graham, Snooks Eaglin, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Jackson C Frank. Not to mention folk singers like Alex Campbell and Anne Briggs (from whom he got his love of embellishment: those rapid hammer-ons/pull-offs).
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Last edited by JonPR; 05-29-2018 at 04:51 PM.
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Old 05-29-2018, 09:35 PM
FwL FwL is offline
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Most people just learn a few patterns for the common.scales and call that good.

I'd suggest a different approach:

Learn key signatures instead.

Start by learning the notes A B C D E F G all over the fingerboard. Learn them up and down the individual strings... groups of strings... across the strings... etc. That will give you C major (C D E F G A B) and A minor (A B C D E F G).

Once you have that down, start adding sharps and flats. Use the circle of fifths to organize keys with sharps and keys with flats.

This way when you want to add melody in and around chords you're playing, you'll just know where the notes are at on the fingerboard rather than playing scale patterns.


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Old 05-29-2018, 11:51 PM
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rick-slo rick-slo is offline
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Jansch is not much of a scale player, at least in the songs of his I have heard. The note he picks are mostly contained in the chord shapes he uses (arpeggios, harmony and melody notes).

However as far as scales you would do well starting with your basic major and minor scales. The patterns group together so it's not that memorization daunting - for example all the major
scales all have the same intervals between notes.
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Old 05-30-2018, 01:13 PM
trueviper trueviper is offline
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Thank you to all for your comments and for your very good advice.

I've watched Bert Jansch play Black Waterside on youtube a million times and I just assumed he was playing scales to create that, never occured to me he was playing chords. And I love the idea of playing chords up and down the frettboard, this is definitely something I want to learn. One step at a time.
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Old 05-30-2018, 08:26 PM
JCook1 JCook1 is offline
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I agree with learning as many chords as you can, and learn where they occur all over the fretboard, because the guitar is mainly a chordal instrument (that's how I think of it, anyway). But playing scales will help you learn where the notes are on the fretboard and what notes are in each key. Nobody "plays" scales; they are just sets of notes in a certain key. As FwL suggested, you can start with the C scale and learn it all over the fretboard. When you add sharps and flats you'll already have a reference for where they are, and this helps with improvisation whether you play solo or with other players. Knowing what notes are in the key of E or A, for example, is useful when you want to play with someone who is playing blues in those keys. The notes are all in the chords, but the scales show you where they are on the fretboard when you want to play riffs and solos. You don't need to play all the scales for hours every day, just play one up and down the fretboard til you know it fairly well, for 5 or 10 minutes a day. Then play a different one. You will learn your instrument more quickly than you think by doing this. Think of it as like learning the alphabet - it makes you able to read and write, and it really doesn't take THAT much work; it'll happen faster than you think.

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Old 05-31-2018, 11:26 AM
Riverwolf Riverwolf is offline
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I think we have/had similar interests and goals just with different artists. The approach I took was a series of paid private lessons followed by internet lessons in the Carter style and some bluegrass. While I am not really a fan of those genres it really helped me with adding a lot of bass notes and melody runs to my playing.

For the internet I used this guy a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjE...YrwFNy6cXWRe6A

PS- I don't remember any of the scales that I once learned.
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