Article#3 - Which scales to learn when
If you are reliant on multiple sources of information to help you improve your guitar playing; books, websites, friends, teachers etc.. you may run into quite a bit of confusion when it comes to deciding which scales to learn at what stage of your development.
Some sources start you out learning the Major scale, others advocate the Minor pentatonic scale or the Blues scale. Truth is that you may well become discouraged and disappointed if you follow the wrong advice in this respect.
This article will attempt to shed some light on the purpose behind mastering these different types of scales.
Modern popular guitar music has a deep and rich history. What we may loosely describe as ‘Rock Music’ has its roots in the fertile soil of a mixture of Blues, Country, Gospel, Folk, and Classical music. Jazz music too, is influenced by all these different strands.
Whether you are headed towards being a Jazz Maestro or a Rock God, there is a lot to be said for starting with making yourself familiar with the basics of Blues music.
Firstly, Blues is probably the strongest influence common to both Rock and Jazz and secondly it is, the easiest form of music to improvise to.
One of the reasons why this whole subject gets confused is that the Blues Scale, although undoubtedly the easiest of the scales to learn and put to immediate effective use, is one of the hardest to define.
The Major scale, on the other hand, is a harder scale to put to immediate use, but is an absolutely essential first scale to learn when it comes to building a knowledge of music theory. This is because all other scales are defined against the Major scale. Neither scales, nor chords can be truly understood without a full working knowledge of the Major scale.
So I suggest the order in which scales should be learnt if you are chiefly interested in putting them to use is:
- Blues scale (*1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7)
Minor penatonic (1, b3, 4, 5, b7)
Country scale (1,2,b3,3,5,6)
Major pentatonic (1,2,3,5,6)
Natural Minor scale (1,2,b3,4,5,b6,b7)
Harmonic Minor scale (1,2,b3,4,5,b6,7)
Major scale (1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
Mixolydian modal scale (1,2,3,4,5,6,b7)
Dorian modal scale (1,2,b3,4,5,6,b7)
Other modal scales and exotic scales
*intervals in brackets define these scales against the Major scale of the same key.
But the order in which scales should be learnt if you are chiefly interested in developing a full understanding of the basics of guitar music theory is:
-
Major scale (1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
Natural Minor scale (1,2,b3,4,5,b6,b7)
Harmonic Minor scale (1,2,b3,4,5,b6,7)
Major pentatonic (1,2,3,5,6)
Country scale (1,2,b3,3,5,6)
Minor penatonic (1, b3, 4, 5, b7)
Blues scale (1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7)
Modal scales with a Major tonality:- Ionian (Same as Major scale)
- Lydian (**#4)
- Mixolydian (b7)
- Aeolian (Same as Natural minor scale)
- Dorian (**nat 6)
- Phrygian (b2)
- Locrian (b2,b5)
**Here the modal scales are defined in terms of how they differ from major and natural minor scales respectively.
The way we have structured our courses follows this pattern so that firstly we get you improvising using a minimum amount of preparatory work. Once you have got the basic knack of stringing together blues and melodic phrases the course takes you deeper into understanding the relationship between chords, scales and keys. This is helpful to all musicians, but particularly essential if you want to move into Jazz. Click on a course logo for details.
