Keep in mind that many guitarists are satisfied with their ability to play just a few songs here and there. There are many guitarists who enjoy performing in clubs for larger audiences. Others strive to become accomplished nationally and internationally. The practice habits for all are different, because the goals are different.

For the purpose of this article, I believe it’s safe to say that those who enjoy playing a few songs here and there, will, most likely, bypass the rigorous schedule of scale and chord practice.

For the intermediates, advanced, or professional players, scale and chord practice is absolutely essential. In fact, daily practice sessions are in line with these levels of musicianship. Why? The development of strength, endurance, recognition of melodic and harmonic structure, and, of course, more facility on the guitar.

The leap from good to great on the guitar is actually a short distance. Shorter than one might think. It’s really all about the level of desire and commitment one has, that will determine the actual distance. However, willingness without action equals fantasy. Good intent means nothing if one is not prepared to act.

None of us believe that, as guitarists, our fingers somehow magically end up on the correct note, the correct string, at the right time, merely by accident. In fact, a great melodic solo and chord work is generally reflective of many years of pure practice. It’s almost a guarantee that behind every great guitarist, there are thousands and thousands of hours of scale and chord practice. It’s important to remind ourselves of all the benefits as a result of this hard work.

For starters, practicing scales develops finger strength, wrist control, picking techniques, pivot techniques, thumb placement, fret logic, and a multitude of other essential elements needed in order to execute in a professional manner. By practicing scales as scales (not musical statements per se), we learn very good habits and general rules of performance. We also learn that rules are made to be broken. When we, as experienced guitarists, break a rule, we at least know that we are, in fact, breaking a rule. Further, we all know that it’s permissible to break certain rules due to the impositions of certain styles of music, among other things.

For the experienced guitarist, I truly believe it’s important to remember how we arrived at our proficiency level. This is important because, in reality, we should never stop learning and progressing.

As a progressive guitarist, I enjoy those over-the-top solos that generally send chills up the spine of the listener. However, I also enjoy the hours of personal practice that allows me to execute those solos. Performance is one thing and skill development is another. It’s beneficial to enjoy both.

Imagine setting aside approximately eight straight hours of practice time and devoting a good share of that time to practicing one or two scales only. The thought of this routine might surprise some of the more experienced players. Once again, why practice scales when we can solo into infinity? The answer is forth coming.

I can almost guarantee that after a few hours of practicing a scale, the strict succession of the scale tones will disappear and will be replaced with new musical statements. Further, fresh new techniques will also emerge. For example, one might discover a new way to pick a string, cross a string, mute a string, embellish the scale tones, as well as many, many other discoveries. How’s that for progression?

A hardcore practice session can easily turn into a fantastic creative session. This is great news for the original guitarist and songwriter. Need a new guitar lick or song? Practice, practice, practice.

Everything discussed thus far, pertaining to guitar scales, also applies to practicing guitar chords. In music, time waits for no man. Chord construction and execution takes practice. Especially, when dealing with extended chords and altered chords (let’s not forget inversions). Not all of us will have the opportunity to encounter a major 11 Augmented 13th chord. However, what happens if we do? Answer; play it at the speed of right.

Whatever your level of musicianship, be sure to practice for the sake of practice. Great things will result from your hard work.

Post by: Michael E. Fletcher
©2008 Michael E. Fletcher. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
www.UltraGuitarMethod.com

Practicing Guitar Scales & Guitar Chords: The Inherent Value from MyRareGuitars.com

I recently received a letter with the question — How do I mix scales? (Thanks Andreas)

This, with a few additions, is the answer I sent him:

How do you mix scales?

By forgetting about scales completely.

I have hated the idea of scales all my playing life. I never use them (consciously), and never think them. I think melody. I don’t know, or care to know, the names of the various scales and modes. I know the major scale and see all others as being distortions of it. I am also aware that there is the chromatic scale (all twelve notes) to use at all times. You can link any interval with semitones if you so choose, any scale note to any other scale note, from any scale you care to name. It becomes a question of timing, to get to the note you want in the time left to do so, if you follow. All twelve notes are there for the asking.

But seriously, do yourself a favor, stop thinking about scales and concentrate on melody and viewing notes simply as Ones, or flat Threes, or sharp Fives or whatever. You can name all twelve notes like that.

i.e., in ascending order (major scale notes are in bold):

• One (or Tonic, or Root note)
• Flat Nine
• Two / Nine
• Minor Three
• Major Three
• Four / Eleven (often referred to as Sus Four)
• Flat Five
• Five
• Sharp Five (the augmented note)
• Six / Thirteen
• Dominant Seven (or plain old “seventh”, or minor seventh)
• Seven (usually referred to as “major seventh”)
• and One again.

All scales and modes that ever were fit into the chromatic scale.

I have often likened improvised lines to little trips away from home, with “home” being the 1-3-5 of the “chord of the moment”. These are usually, and I stress ‘usually’, your starting notes and finishing notes. The other notes used to link home notes can be any of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. Naturally, the 2, 4, 6, and 7 (which are the other scale notes) will be favorites, but any of the others (non-scale notes) can be seen as linking notes – notes not to linger on, but notes to fill the gaps. Basically, any fret will do. However, timing becomes paramount. “Phrasing” might be a better word. You must mold your line so that you wind up passing through the home notes at the right time, and most importantly, resolving them on time. By that, I mean get home on time. How do you do that?

Another way of looking at it: you create a simple melodic line, one that fits the changes, and then you fill in a few gaps (in space and time) with notes from the chromatic scale. Before long, you know what every one of those twelve notes sounds like in context. You’ll know where each one leads, and which tensions are set up and resolved with which notes.

A good example is the blues. Again, I never think “blues scale”, but I know that (in a major key) the 3 hovers between the minor and major versions. It never settles, so I avoid it as a resolve note. I know that the seven is the dominant 7th, the flat 7. So I make sure it winds up in my lines, not the major seven. The flat 7 really is a blue note, and can be used as another home note. All intervals can be linked with semitones. Strictly major music never uses the flat three and only uses the flat 7 for the V chord.

Major key music which isn’t the blues never uses the flat 3 and uses the major seven, except for the V chord, which uses the flat seventh. (Why? Because it’s one of the scale notes.)

Minor music is minor music. I was asked that question in another letter.

What is a minor key?

I’ll answer that next time.

The Chromatic Scale from MyRareGuitars.com

Music is Mathematics

There are two basic numbering systems in music. One has to do with the scale, the other with the key.

Let’s look at the numbers relating to the scale first.

There are seven notes in the scale. Simple enough. The order of intervals, or spaces, between these 7 notes is what makes it unique. The formula, as we should all know by now is Tone, Tone, semitone, Tone, Tone, Tone, semitone.

Pythagoras ratios for guitar

Understanding the notes

So our first little bit of math is to understand that from the TWELVE notes of the chromatic scale — all the notes — the scale uses SEVEN, spaced out as described. If there were six notes in the scale, you could imagine them evenly spaced a tone away from each other. But there are seven, so there have to be a couple of semitones thrown in.

(These seven notes by the way, weren’t simply chosen by someone long ago to be the ones we’d all use. They also come from mathematics, from fractions. For example, a vibrating string tuned to A440, when halved will produce another A note, but vibrating at 880 cycles / second, an octave up. That same string doubled in length will vibrate at 220 cycle / second, yet another A an octave down. That same string cut in 3 will produce E notes, and if you cut it into quarters and make 3/4 of it ring, you’ll be listening to a D note. Try it out on your guitar, you’ll hear for yourself. By the way, the halfway mark of guitar strings is the twelfth fret, the one third mark is the seventh fret, the one quarter mark is at the fifth fret.)

Back to the seven scale notes. Chords are made by combining alternate notes from the scale. The simplest chord of all is the triad. It uses three alternate scale notes. The old one-three-five.

You can add other scale notes to those to make an extended chord. The next alternate note is the seven. So a One-Three-Five-Seven combination is called a major seventh.

Mathematics Quote from Oswald Veblen (1924)

You can add a ‘Two’ note to the chord, but it has be added on the treble side of the grouping, so you’re actually using the ‘Two’ from the next octave up. Since the root (One) note of that octave can be seen as the eighth note of the scale, a ‘Two’ note is the next one up, the ‘Nine’.

You can use the ‘Four’ note if you want, but since it’s only one semitone away from the ‘Three’, it actually replaces the ‘Three’. This chord is called ‘Sus Four’. It begs to be brought back to the Three.

If you add not the Seven note that is in the scale but the next note down, the ‘minor Seven’ it’s sometimes called, you wind up with a Seventh chord, as distinct from the major seventh. They’re also referred to as ‘dominant’.

‘Elevens’ are ‘Fours’, ‘Thirteens’ are ‘Sixes’. (Simply subtract seven from those big numbers to find out which note is being called for). And so on and so. It’s pretty straight forward really: the numbers refer to the the seven notes by their order. Just remember that the One-Three-Five are taken for granted as being present.

The next set of numbers refers to the chords within the key. Each of the seven scale notes qualifies as a starting note to build a chord using the alternate note rule. These chords are often written as Roman numerals.

I — II — III — IV — V — VI — VII

Sometimes, you’ll see them written like this:

I — ii — iii — IV — V — vi — vii

This is a good way of doing it because it shows the major / minor quality of the chords. As I’ve been trying to impress upon you, it’s really important to instantly know what all those chords are for any key. Remember The Music Building I wrote about recently.

Let’s say you see a chord written as V7. What does that mean? It means it’s the Five chord from whatever key you’re in, and it’s the Dominant Seventh version. So if you’re in C, you’re looking at a G7. Or a vi7? That would be Am7.

Record producers often write tunes out simply using the numbers. If they’re unsure of the singer’s range, they will choose a suitable the key in the studio. Only then will the numbers become actual chords, mentally converted by the players. Nashville is famous for this kind of notation.

Of course, time signatures and tempo are also related to mathematics. In fact the method we use to crank up a song is for someone to yell out ONE – TWO, A ONE – TWO – THREE – FOUR. The whole of music is one seething mass of numbers when it comes down to it. Lucky for us it sounds and feels so good to make listen back to, otherwise who would bother trying to figure it out?

I hope this article hasn’t put anyone off. The fact is, all these numbers simply become music when you do put a bit of effort into practising it. The layers of music become distinct and workable. Then the fun begins…

Kirk Lorange is one of Australia’s best know slide guitarists. He is also the author of PlaneTalk guitar method. Check out his sites: www.KirkLorange.com and www.ThatllTeachYou.com

Music is Mathematics from MyRareGuitars.com