Learn Guitar Scales or Not?

All basic guitar instruction courses at the root level will tell you to learn chords, guitar scales and arpeggios because they know you’ll gain a greater understanding of how the music process links and works together, you’ll expand your playing with new possibilities and concepts, rather than the reverse.

Here is the most important factor to think about. A lot of self taught musicians tend to suffer from episodes of self doubt because of not knowing what they should play, which in turn can lead to lack of self confidence in your playing.

Knowledge is power as you know, so if you want to advance your guitar playing to expert status or if you want to be taken seriously as a professional musician, there’s no way around it, you’re going to have to set some time aside to practice modes, scales and learn notes on your guitar fretboard.

Here are some pointers to help you get started.

One and a half to 10 minutes a day of disciplined practice will give more results than 10 years of picking up your guitar and strumming or picking about, sitting on the end of your bed.

Set aside ten minutes for a practice session and decide before hand exactly what you’re going to do and learn. Too many guitarists tell me they practiced for 6 hours a day and when I ask them what did you learn – Most of them don’t give me a clear answer.

Always always always use a drum machine or metronome when practicing as you will learn in time that timing is everything.

Don’t worry about practicing at the speed of sound when you start. You’ll find most guitarists who play fast, find out that speed is not what music or playing a guitar is really about. They end up going back to their roots and playing melodic phrases that satisfy themselves and the listener.

Don’t beat yourself up because you’re not playing like Stevie Ray Vaughan or Eric Clapton after a couple of weeks of playing a guitar.

There’s something that isn’t discussed very often about practicing guitar scales or modes or arpeggios is that it doesn’t have to be drudgery and boredom. Spending 10 or 20 minutes a day working on the theory aspect of your playing will yield benefits far beyond what you can come up with on your own. I don’t think there’s a single musician on the planet who has spent time learning theory and said I wish I wouldn’t have spent all that time learning all that crap.

So, if you want to advance your Guitar playing or song writing skills that are original and express who you really are, you should consider opening yourself to some solid theory because the road to originality is through other peoples stuff. If you have a good working knowledge of guitar scales, you will recognize what your favorite players are up to and be able to duplicate those phrases in all keys for yourself.