Guitarists i need help......?

Question

Right, SCALES the mother of all guitar questions. Can someone explain to me in Layman Terms how to understand Scales, im really confused with Modes and various aspects of the scales, ive been learning the Major Scale for E.

I seriously want to learn scales and am finding it really hard to understand how to use them to my advantage. Any help would be great!

Thanks in advance!

Thanks every one that replied, im still finding it a little hard. However ive put in place a system to learning notes from scratch so i hope that'll work.

Answer 1

Scales are complicated. What they do is teach you what gets sharped and what gets flatted in layman's terms. If you have a piece of music and there is nothing in the beginning of the music where the G clef is its in the key of C, or A minor, that's the key signature, no sharps no flats. In other words that scale would be C D E F G A B C , nothing is sharped or flatted, unless specified, and that;s call an accidental, so when you practiced it there would be no sharps or flats when you practic this scale. Scales are intended to teach you when your playing in a certain key what is sharped and flated in that key, that's why you practic them, so that you can make yourdself familiar with the different keys and what notes go with that key. I wish you were here this is so much more easier with paper and pencil, and seeing it makes it a lot more understandable. Now suppose when you look at the music there is four sharps, that's the key of E major or C sharp minor this means when doing a scale you would sharp the, F G, D, and C.YOU KNOW WHAT, I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING, go to google and just type in" flats and sharps in music", and up will come everything that you need to know about sharps and flats, print out the pages that come up. It's too complicated to explain it all here without writing out the staff and showing you on paper, it would take forever and probably be confusing, it's better to see it in print, print all this out on your printer and study it, it's all there, it's too much to try and get this across here in one answer, I think that you'll find this so much easier, Good luck and I hope this helps. Maybe seeing it will make it less complicated then I'm making it sound, it's a lot easier if you visualize it.This is why I like google as a search engine, you just type in what your looking for and up it comes. Good luck, I hope that I didn't make it sound more comlicated then it is. When you google with "sharps and flats in music". up will come a number of pages, click on the first one, it says KEY SIGNATURES, and up will come everything that you need, you can't do this any other way, I'v tried getting on their site using that other web site and forget it , it doesn't come up, so just do as I said and you'll be quite please, just don't forget to print it out, cause God only knows how long it will be avaliable. Bye !!!!!

Answer 2

Yes, look at the web sites, but to put it in perspective - any group of notes can be considered some scale or another. And even in the context of a scale there can be "out" notes - especially in jazz. The basic scales like the major (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do) can help with written music, but in terms of guitar improvising it's much more productive to go by ear and patterns. Learn the pentatonic patterns and you can play all night.

Answer 3

the scales contain every note in each key whether its voice or instrument ( Do, Ray, Me, Fa, So, La Ti, Do) they begin with the low note (Do) and end with the same high note (Do). in between these notes, as you progress in your learning, you can flatten or sharpen each note to suit your musical needs. think of the notes as a path, when you start learning you start at low Do and work through ray me fa so la and ti till you reach the high Do once you know the path well (i.e you know where you are supposed to start and finish) you can stray off the path in between..basic chords in the key of C are C F & G. in the key of D this becomes D G & A. Each note moving up one step in each key.

Answer 4

http://www.myguitarsolo.com/

This site is not comprehensive, but it will help.