PlayJazzGuitar.com Forum

[LarryB]

Once you've gotten your major scales down pretty well....meaning that you can burn through them at a good speed with good accuracy and in a variety of fingerings up and down and across the neck....is their real value with continuing to working on them until you truly master them? I keep praticing them, but wonder if this is time well spent since I don't really see any immediate payoff. Is there some sort of transformation that's happening within me over time that will improve my guitar playing, the more that I work on the scales? Or is there a point of diminishing returns?

[mr. beaumont]

the ultimate value of working on everything is mastery.

reaching the point of mastery, in my opinion, the point where you can pull it off without stress, where it is second nature, is the ultimate goal. essentially, this is the "forget all that stuff and play" part from the often misunderstood parker quote (or whoever said it...)

it takes a lot of work to get to that point, but it's worth it. I have not reached it in all aspects of my playing mind you, but in the ones i have, it's truly a great feeling to be able to improvise freely and have complete control over what you are doing at the moment.
_________________
“For the guitar is the most unpredictable and least reliable musical instrument in existence...and also the sweetest, the warmest, the most delicate, whose melancholic voice awakes in our soul exquisite reveries.”

Andres Segovia

[JakeJew]

[Jazzy]

LarryB, how do you practice scales? I mean it`s one thing to learn different fingerings and shapes, but that`s the "easy" part of learning scales.

One thing I`ve done a lot is playing scales up and down one string at a time. And learning to hear what each note does to the chord you`re playing. Also, I don`t practice exact fingerings, in my opinion that doesn`t do that much good. You don`t want to rely on a specific fingering when improvising. It`s the line you hear that should decide the music, not the fingering.

When you`re comfortable on one string then move to two strings, and work with the different intervals up and down. And try to improvise just with the interval you`re working with. And then expand this concept to other patterns, string combinations, rhythmic subdivisions etc.

Another thing is to really study what`s "inside" the scale; triads, seventh chords and learn to hear these.

Some books you could check out: the advancing guitarist by Mick Goodrick and harmonic mechanisms by Van Eps. I`ve learned a lot from these two. I also recommend playing/studying some Bach ( solo violin ), there`s some fantastic line movements and voiceleading in those pieces.

[LarryB]

Thanks. That's helpful advice.