Scales are Greek to me

[breakdanceattiffanys]

OK, so to preface... I have been playing guitar off and on for about 15yrs, some times more intensely than others. I know the names of about six chords but can play 30-40, have to stop and think about the name of the string because I'm so programmed from tab, and yet I can play by ear - I learned 'Summer Song' after playing guitar for two years completely by ear. This is all well and good if you want to impress shallow women and play other people's stuff, but here I am in my 30's with the idea that I'm a decent guitar player and I realize I know exactly NOTHING about doing it myself. Blues, jazz, and glam rock are hands down my favs and I have made my way playing all of them live so far, but through literally HOURS of memorization, and am at that point where that just doesn't seem right... all of those are improv modes, or at least the bands I want to go see and enjoy are improv/jam bands.

I don't get scales, even the Pentatonic. I can play the notes, I get the forms, but what do they mean? If a song is in A minor, where does it start, why does it work, where are the notes to play that are right or wrong?

I have Mel Bay books and all kinds of DVDs and all the information there is to have, and I know the positions and the scales as they are written, but WTF? Seriously... somebody needs to just give me a one-liner or put it in completely idiots terms as to how to make that work... I know the idea of it all, but it doesn't make sense to me...

Anybody out there have a 2x4 wide enough to make me think less and play more? I know it's all about feel, always has been, but I want to expand, and seriously... if I can memorize 10-15 different scales/modes, know the fingering positions and play through them quickly enough, then I'm obviously doing something wrong if I don't get how they fit together...

Right?

 

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Scales are Greek to me

Study some basic music theory. If you have access to a piano all the better because it's quite clear on a piano how things work...guitar not so much.

 

[DesertRat]

Re: Scales are Greek to me

Talk to different teachers and find one who's good at teaching theory.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Scales are Greek to me

As much as i often think to myself, I am only as good as my weakest link, i suggest this ... play to your strengths. What i suggest is learning the arpeggios to the chords you already know, then connect them on the fretboard using the CAGED system. It's very easy and you are basically using what you already play, and filling in the gaps. From there, it's easy to fill the three and four note arpeggios in to become pentatonic scales, and the arpeggios/CAGED system give you a simple grid which simplifies the fretboard. This stuff should be easily found online. It's all based around simple open chord shapes (C, A, G, E, and D) which can be used all over the neck.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Scales are Greek to me

That's actually fairly average among self-taught guitarists in my experience.

You probably know a lot more then you suspect you know but don't know how to connect the dots.

Or where to begin to connect them...

Unfortunately if you have Mel Bay books, DVD's and all sorts of other materials and nothing makes sense nobody is going to be able to explain it to you over the internet. There's probably one or two key points your missing or that never clicked.

The best thing you can do is make the commitment to find a teacher who can customize your lessons and fill in the blanks. Doing the on-line/remote thing doesn't work... you need someone to explain things to you one to one.

 

[prophetofthor]

Re: Scales are Greek to me

i'll give it a shot. here ya go ::

scales are simply distances. that's it.

if you were to drive from dallas to new york it is a set distance of miles. you would stop at cities along the way. points on a line.

a 5th is a set distance from the root. you mentioned Am as a key. the 5th of A is E. the minor 3rd of A is C, so on so forth. what makes guitar complicated is that there is 6 lines called guitar strings. if you were a sax player you would only have learn 1 line, up and down. same way with a piano player. it all goes in one line, lowest to highest. think of your guitar as 6 saxes that you put your hands on (guitar strings).

bb king and charlie christian where primarily influenced by horn players, not guitar players. you need to learn 1 note at a time melodies and absorb them. learn the melody 1st and then think of context of "scale". learn any melody that sticks in your head. star wars theme, beatle's songs, tv show theme songs are great! whatever.

hope that helps!

 

[Frantic_Rock]

Re: Scales are Greek to me

You can check out my site for scale and mode fingerings. I have some articles there for modes of the major scale, modes of the melodic minor, and modes of the harmonic minor. There are other scales like diminished whole/half, whole tone scale, etc, but these really do cover a lot of ground.

http://www.GuitarCats.com

I think of a scale as sets of Root note and another note. In A Minor (Aeolian), there is obviously the ROOT (A), and 6 other notes. Each of these 6 other notes has a relationship with the root. Each of these also has a certain level of tension and character against the root.

An exercise: Play A minor over an a minor sustained chord, and play each of the other notes (2nd, minor 3rd, 4th, 5th, minor 6th, minor 7th) over and over. Learn how each of those notes sound like to you. You can describe the sound of each individual note with a "color" or with a "mood" - whatever describes the sound to you so that you can remember it for later. This is how I pretty much learned to play guitar - by learning by ear which note it is that makes the difference.

For example: A Aeolian and A Dorian only has 1 note different - the 6th. And it makes a huge difference. That 6th is kind of "lighter", "hipper" or "more playful" in the dorian than the Aeolian.
The Aeolian 6th is "MY DOG IS DEAD "
The Dorian 6th is "Lets go to the club and pick up chicks!"

I hope i didn't confuse you

Peace

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Scales are Greek to me

Just remember to think of everything in reference to the chords you're playing over. I'd agree with Crusty's suggestion to stick with arpeggios and then fill in the additional notes as you go along.

Let's say you're playing over an A minor chord, the safest note choices are the ones actually in the chord (your basic arpeggio). These should be key notes that you're targeting (especially the 3rd) on a regular basis while the chord is playing. You can add in different sounds when you expand that to include the b7th, then you can expand it to include the 4th (min pentatonic), etc. etc.

You can write these sequences of intervals out like so:
Min Arpeggio (1 - b3 - 5) = A - C - E
Min 7th Arp (1 - b3 - 5 - b7) = A - C - E - G
Min Pentatonic (1 - b3 - 4 - 5 - b7) = A - C - D - E - G
Min Scale (1 - 2 - b3 - 4 - 5 - b6 - 7) = A - B - C - D - E - G

These notes will not clash with the Am that you're playing against. The important thing to remember here is that that as soon as the chord changes, your target notes need to change as well.

 

[GoDrex]

Re: Scales are Greek to me

If a song is in A minor, where does it start, why does it work, where are the notes to play that are right or wrong?

well a key (like "in the key of A minor) generally means a tonal center. What that means is that generally the music will happen around and generally return to that note (in this case A).

The key also means that you're going to generally (there can be exceptions - sometimes known as accidentals) use the notes of that key.

So in A Minor, the notes are, A,B,C,D,E,F,G,A.

The pattern of a minor scale is this:
(whole steps and half steps)
W - H - W - W - H - W - W

on a guitar a whole step is a two fret distance. a half step is a one step distance. If you start on A and follow the above pattern you will play the A minor scale

now using those notes we are able to construct chords. Generally a song in A minor will use chords made from the A minor scale

simple triads are going to be the 1, 3 and 5 of the scale.

so the first chord will be:
A - C - E - - - this chord is A minor

here's the triads you can create from a minor scale:

lower case are minor chords, upper are major chords (the 0 means diminished)

i ii0 III iv v VI VII i

so the next chord is B diminished - made from the 1,3 and 5 which are the notes B, D, F

the next is C Major - again the 1,3,5 gives us the notes C, E, G

and so on...

7th chords are made by adding the 7th note of the scale to the triad.

songs in A minor are usually going to resolve to the A Minor chord. This means that chord progressions will often start and return to the A minor chord.

Now if you use the same exact notes as the A minor scale, but start on C, that is C major. C major's tonal center is C.

It's scales are created in this way:

I ii iii IV V vi vii0 I
C D E F G A B C

as you can see, the A chord is again minor and the B chord is diminished, just like in the key of A minor. All of the triads are the same. Only the tonal center has shifted.

the major scale is made from this sequence

W W H W W W H

That should keep you thinking for a while. Hope it's understandable.