Tag Archives: scale patterns

I love to work from arpeggios when improvising and creating musical lines. It’s so easy to create a melody with them and they can be easily expanded upon with scales. In this lesson we’re going to work through a simple musical exercise for applying arpeggios and scales to the guitar.

Learning scales is quite a task and how you go about practicing guitar scales makes all the difference. No doubt it’s challenging, but learning to play them fluidly up and down the fretboard is so rewarding. While it takes time and effort to achieve, it can be simplified with a four step process that can make your practice much more effective.

In this lesson we’re going to take a look at some guitar scale exercises that will not only help you get the patterns under your fingers, but also improve both picking and fretting hand technique.

In a previous lesson, we looked at the 3 notes per string major scale, which is a way to outline major scale patterns across the fretboard using 3 notes on each string. In this lesson we’re going to do the same thing with the minor scale and build out the 3 notes per string minor scale patterns.

In previous lessons we’ve learned about the CAGED system for learning guitar chords and scales. Another system that is useful for learning scales is the 3 notes per string system.

Slash is one of my favorite guitar players and the person who inspired me to pick up the guitar when I was 14 years old. His bluesy hard rock licks accentuated with epic bends have created a rock legend with a style all of his own.

The pentatonic scale is one of the most widely used scales on the guitar. The versatility and playability of the scale makes it a popular choice for use in guitar soloing and melodies. No doubt about it, this five-note scale packs a punch! Let’s take a look at what makes up this scale and how it’s applied to the guitar fretboard. By the end of this lesson you’ll see for yourself what makes this scale so special!

The major scale is the centerpiece of music theory and probably the most commonly used scale in music.  In order to understand chords and other scales, you need to first understand the major scale. In this lesson we will take a look at what makes up the major scale and the major scale patterns on the guitar.