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I am learning guitar scales. Right now I am playing licks and solos in Minor and Mayor Pentatonic.
I have also learned the Dorian scale. I know the positions, and in order to develop dextercity, i am playing note by note, with a metronome.
I really dont feel like I am improving, so I wanted to ask:
What kind of exercises should i do, to develop dextercity and speed in a scale?
Should I play licks? Block exercises?
I enjoy practicing scales, but I am runing out of ideas.
Any help is apriciated.
Thank you.
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09-25-2017 10:56 PM
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The best exercise imo is to put up a backing track and improvise. Practicing scales in a musical context develops not only technique, but also your musical ideas.
There are some examples on this page:
The Beginner's Guide To Guitar Modes & Scales (+ Video/PDF)
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Mine is a minority view.
I would suggest:
1. Learn every note on the fretboard so that it's automatic. Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, learning to read may be the best way.
2. Memorize notes in all 12 major scales. You will need to memorize enharmonic equivalents separately. So, for example, you know F# and Gb both without thinking. Same notes, but you don't want to have to take the moment to think, oh F#, that's Gb.
3. Memorize the notes in every melodic minor scale.
4. Memorize the notes in every chord you want to use. Think of them as chord tones. Same notes as an arpeggio, but without the notion of playing them in order.
5. Now it's time for tune - actually you can start with tunes as soon as you can play the scales and chord tones you need for one tune. What you're going to do is learn how to identify the "tonal center" of a tune, or portion of a tune. Then, play the right chord tones and scale tones.
6. Get IRealPro, pick a simple tune like All Of Me. Figure out which scales you need to play it in the key of C and use those notes to improvise. Then, when you're ready, do it in the key of G, then D, then A, then E etc, all the way around back to C. Or, you may want to start with the more common keys, C F Bb Eb G D.
If you've read this far, this approach probably strikes you as ridiculous. You might be thinking that it will take forever. But, the advantage is that once you know the fretboard and the notes you want, you can play them anywhere, starting on any string, any finger. Also, all your practice is playing your own ideas on tunes.
If you do it the more common way, using CAGED, you will have to learn a zillion patterns and, after you've learned all these patterns, you'll have to practice starting the patterns on any note, and then you'll have to work on connecting them and so forth.
It's a lot of work either way.
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Actually speed and dexterity are not connected directly with practicing scales... meaning it may help as well as not.What kind of exercises should i do, to develop dextercity and speed in a scale?
In that sence too many things depends on tecnical and physicaly effeciency of your playing.
Hand position and posture, finger independence, fretting and picking coordination...
In actual musical context understanding what you're doing may also effect speed (so to say - 'speed of thinking' in realtion to 'speed of playing'... problem may come up both when you think faster than you can play, or you play faster than you think... )
Again improving in what? Speed and dexterity will be one thing...I really dont feel like I am improving
Creative ideas and improvising is absolutely different issue
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You are a product of what you practise. Practise scales & mechanics: that's what you play. Practise tunes & solos: that's what you play. Very simple.
Learn tunes & learn guys' solos off records.
If you want to learn to play 'jazz', don't work on scales at all. Don't waste your time.
I have it on good authority that Grant, Wes or George NEVER practised scales.
Peace.
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When I had my own guitar shop and was mainly teaching students for a living I had my students focus on training both hands to be completely relaxed when they were practicing scales. The speed part of playing seemed to happen by itself over a period of time when they focused on the relaxation instead.
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He spoke about dexterity and speed.
Originally Posted by destinytot
Using scales can be an excercise for this too.
There are technical issues you can't avoid... scales can be an excercise both in technoque and fretboard knowledge. Whatever actually - they can be creative tool in jazz too if you know how to use it.
Practice should be purposeful... you can use whatever you want but you have to understand what you use it for.
If you use mechanical chromatic excercise for fingers dexterity... this is just it, this is not practicing music.
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For speed and dexterity, I'd suggest reading bop heads, Paganini (like Moto Perpetuo), transcriptions of solos (including your own transcriptions), big band charts and so forth.
Not only will you develop fingerboard knowledge, but you'll learn actual jazz parts and you'll learn to read. All useful skills, again, depending on what you want to accomplish.
One other point -- and I know this from having practiced scales incorrectly for years -- whatever you practice, make absolutely certain you articulate every single note clearly. This is a subtle point and it's easy to get this wrong. But, the great players make each note speak clearly. So, for example, running a scale rapidly and a little sloppily can develop a very bad habit.
Also, if you don't develop some reading when you're starting out, apparently, it's a lot harder later. I've met a lot of frustrated readers -- guys who could play great by ear, but just couldn't get their reading together.
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page 72, January 2012 Guitar Player magazine (with Satriani & Mike Anthony on the cover): Originally Posted by Jonah
George BensonI started practising - not scales, but blending chords together through single lines.
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Considering the source, it must be true:
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It would help to hear you play. (It all comes out when you hear someone play.) Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
EDIT rpguitar on YouTube, right? Checked it out. You sound good.Last edited by destinytot; 09-26-2017 at 07:13 PM.
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There is nothing wrong with practicing scales as long as you know what to expect and not expect from them. Dexterity and speed can be improved by practicing scales - absolutely.
Here's the thing though, scale practice doesn't mean just playing a scale up and down, not even for classical musicians. (Think about that one a bit). Many people assume that it does.
Another hint - In Gary Burton's Jazz Improvisation class at Berklee he addresses this topic directly. He has a section entitled "how improvisers practice scales". He doesn't recommend "don't practice scales".
Final hint - Have you ever heard the term patterns, scale patterns, patterns for jazz, etc? Have you investigated them?
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I feel like these conversations always turn into "scales are not THE answer ". Well, of course they're not. They aren't the FINAL answer, but they're not really supposed to be. For horn players, pianists, and other "real " musicians who don't play guitar , they're something that was covered ages ago in grade school music classes.
If real jazz musicians don't talk about scales a lot, it's probably because they already have the BASIC stuff together. "Why are you trying to learn jazz if you can't say you're ABC's?". Many guitarists honestly don't have basic together. Not technically and not in terms of basic fretboard knowledge. Randomly working things out on the fretboard just to begin to play some music. I'm speaking from personal experience there. It took some really good players on the forum basically call me on this. Again, I think other instrumentalists have these basics together already.
There are plenty of musicians who say they never practiced scales , but there are ALSO far too many really excellent musicians who swear by knowing these fundamentals (and who say they practiced them endlessly in early days) - to simply write them off.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 09-26-2017 at 08:46 PM.
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More specifically to the OP, make sure you're not mindlessly practicing scales up and down. Take the time to really do the technical work . Many players "play" scales rather than "practice" them. Work out the problem spots specifically , and like anything, don't just play the whole thing every time. For guitarists, usually there are problems going from two notes per string to three notes per string around the second and third strings etc. Take the time to work these glitches out, so that they aren't aren't worse than the rest of the scale pattern. Your fingers shouldn't be flying everywhere etc. if you're going to do the straight up-and-down thing, at least make it technical work. Otherwise, you're playing something with zero musical value for no purpose whatsoever.
For me personally, scale practice started making a lot more sense when I began by doing everything in two octaves as a starting reference, from each scale degree, Working your way up the fretboard: G major, from G to G at the third fret, G major from A to A at the fifth fret etc. etc. That way the rhythm, picking patterns , in the left-hand fingering patterns all have a common reference to each other, and feel much the same. to me it's analogous to other instrumentalists doing basic one and two octave patterns to start , before going on to more complex random patterns that work the full range of instruments.
Once you have basic 2nds down, play them in thirds, and learn some of the patterns. Jazz is all about targeting chord tones, and you can do this with basic scales. I wish someone had shown me this at the very beginning. 1-2-3-1, 2-3-4-2 etc. up and down the scale is a basic targeting pattern . You hear all musicians, jazz and classical, doing this stuff. As a jazz student, you should ADDITIONALLY be taking the time to think about which tone is being targeted there. In that case it's the 1. Burt Ligon calls these cyclical quadruplets. There are four iterations to practice up-and-down any scale: 1231, 1321, 3123, and 3213. The first two target the bottom note, and the last two target the top. Practice scales and straight thirds. Do the same in fourths etc., but thirds are really fundamental to targeting chord tones... , enclosures and all the rest.
If you're frustrated with basic scale work take a look at Barry Harris's scale approaches. They are rhythmically based and again, target chord tones. At the very least, begin looking at playing root-to-7th-and-back scale patterns he teaches. You can run that stuff over any tune , and start to get a feel for really working chord changes in a way which isn't completely arbitrary. Most of what we do as guitarists regarding scales is just THAT, by the way. I think that's the problem. We mostly play arbitrary scale patterns which don't mean anything.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 09-27-2017 at 06:15 AM.
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He does sound good. But I'm not him.
I've posted some stuff on soundclick.
SoundClick artist: Ginga - Brazilian Jazz
150825 Cafe Com Pao (guitar solo at 1:50 or so) is probably the best representation of what I'm trying to do.
That said, I don't think how I play is all that relevant to this discussion. Maybe I'd play worse if I was doing it some other way, maybe better. No way to know.
Either the ideas have merit or they don't.
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Not a challenge, but an attempt to understand basis of (empirical?) claims within 'jazz' framework. (You're right that it's beside the point, but it was helpful to hear your playing. You sound great and your band is amazing.) Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Thanks for the kind words.
My impression is that most players don't do it the way I did.
But, along the way, I tried all kinds of things. Some worked, many didn't.
I had no idea where I was going most of the time.
I took lessons at the local music school when I was a kid. I didn't realize it until later, but, because it was New York, the guys teaching the kids were jazz players and got me into jazz. I learned reading from the first lesson. (Belwin #1).
I wasn't good at learning pattern based approaches, although I know and use some. I wasn't good at transcribing. And, when I did transcribe, not a lot of it got into my playing.
I took lessons, on and off, and picked up something from a bunch of different teachers, but I was still at an amateur level.
Then, about 15 years ago I started taking group lessons -- not a group of guitarists, but like a band. I was lucky to get into a group of good musicians and I started recognizing all kinds of weaknesses. So, I worked on ear training. The teacher didn't like licks. He'd stop a student and say "no licks! make melody!". So I worked on that. The charts were hard and there was no mercy, so I worked on reading. The teacher was fanatical about groove, so I worked on time.
The epiphany for improvisation came when I realized that I could solo pretty well in C major. I knew where every note in the scale was, and I could find the extensions. That knowledge came from reading. And, I realized, at the same time, that I couldn't do it as well in any other key. Some better than others. I thought, maybe I should try to learn all the keys as well as I know C major. So, I drilled.
Then, when I got IRealPro, it took off. I'd set the tune for 13 repeats. The original key at the beginning and end and a fourth up every chorus. If I got stuck, I'd slow it down. Drilled with it for hours and hours. It got to the point where I could get through most changes with less difficulty, no matter what key. I play a lot of Brazilian music, and there are lots of key shifts, so that knowing all the keys and all the enharmonic equivalents is really helpful.
Now, I fully understand that there are plenty of great players who didn't do it this way. Maybe all of them. I don't really know if any great player did do it this way. But, it does work and it still seems to me like it might be a good way to become a well rounded jazz guitarist. Given how hard it was for me to learn a scale from 5 patterns in different positions and be able to enter a scale from any note anywhere on the neck, I found my approach easier.
BTW, I didn't talk about comping, but there's an advantage to not thinking in grips. It can be very helpful to know all the chord tones and just pick a couple that work for the voice leading in a tune.
I've been playing for 53 years. I don't know if it's going to be helpful to anybody else, but I figure us old guys have a responsibility to pass on what we can.
I'm also aware that what works for one player may not work for another.
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
I agree with Matt & I'll add my 2 cents as I'm in the middle of learning/relearning the fretboard in a systematic, organized way. A few things have been helping me:
- Reg's posts about fingering patterns and 7 positions - as a way of organizing the fretboard almost as clearly as the white keys/black keys layout of the keyboard.
- as another "mechanical" device - primarily for arpeggios, but it makes moving around the fretboard so much easier - Andrew Green's book Jazz Guitar Technique. The main principle being that mini barrés are never used to play same-fret notes on consecutive strings e.g. from C on the G string to E on the B string - Applies for arpeggios and all kinds of scale exercises. Was tough to learn at first but plenty worth it. This is not conventional technique. (In addition, as another "mechanical" device, I cannot recommend Troy Grady's videos about picking enough)
- learning not just scales or anything separately but to see scales, arpeggios and chords in relation to each other.
- Bert Ligon's books are plenty useful. Comprehensive Jazz Technique is more focused on scale exercises among many other things; not blind exercises but always in a musical context.
- Hal Galper's Forward Motion gives pointers about scale practice. As a general principle Galper teaches to synchronize "strong" tones with the "strong" beats, i.e. 1 3 5 7 (either 2 of those 4) should be synchronized with beats 1 & 3. So scales are either rearranged or are given added (chromatic) pitches in scale practice so the strong tones fall on the strong beats. A basic scale exercise played like this actually sounds good.
In guitar instruction plenty of times you'll hear that there's really no right or wrong way of doing things. I think it's bunk, some things make sense and some just don't. I'm not saying that the above is the only way, but to me it helps immensely to have a solid frame of reference - which you can build upon and will work for anything you practice, scales, arpeggios, on to tunes - everything connected as much as possible. All good players, from Jimi Hendrix to Jimmy Raney, have had super logical systems, one way or another. With Reg's system, for instance, all of a sudden, the fretboard no longer was a mystery. Keyboardist don't have that problem to begin with; guitarists do: the problem has to be addressed. Similarly, picking or fingering techniques used for scales are of limited value if they start to fall apart the minute one starts dealing with arpeggios.Last edited by m_d; 09-27-2017 at 04:44 AM.
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Personally, I use scales for visualising the neck.
I'm always working on the basics - by thinking/reflecting about hows and whys.
But I keep it simple, and boil everything down to 'home or away'/'tonic or dominant'. Finer distinctions either show up in playing - or they're academic an not for me.
For playing, I refer to sound and groove (heard mentallly) - I keep loose and only practise what I can't play.
Guitar solo post-warbling (and before train wreck at end) @4:30:
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Nice! I like the vocal too.
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For me, you can try to sound like real jazz players like Wes or Benson or Grant ... or try to sound like those great new Berklee Boston guitar players that became popular in the late 60s and early 70s.
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Thanks. I'm not much of a singer, but I do study repertoire. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Like rpjazzguitar, I learn from Brazilian music - in my case strictly João Gilberto - but it's peripheral to my frame of reference for 'jazz'. Originally Posted by destinytot
EDIT The point is - ears. And the real challenge is - self-restraint. YMMV.
Last edited by destinytot; 09-27-2017 at 05:35 AM.
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Didn't realize it was a binary choice. Personally, I'm probably most influenced by Wes Montgomery and Keith Jarrett. So I don't know where that puts me. :-) At the end of the day, I'm going to play like me probably. Originally Posted by destinytot
Anyway, I don't think anyone is advocating "scales as process" or "scales as a method for WHAT to play". Every horn player knows their scales and doesn't have a philosophical problem with the creative part or necessarily think that it has anything to do with the music part. I'm not talking about berklee either. The great horn players knew this basic stuff. Maybe not melodic minor as much, but I personally feel like I have to know that, for the comping implications alone.
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That's my own painful conclusion (now default) - that (i) such a choice is necessary in order to counter the negative influence of (commercial) categorisation by genre*, and that (ii) only once that choice has been made can meaningful finer distinctions happen in ways that are intuitive/on-the-fly. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
No matter how innovative, an essential element for me to acknowledge it as 'jazz' is a connection to a long-standing tradition (American - not European).
*including the 'talking up' of style over content, and sound quality over performance
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