Is playing scales good practice?

ChrisGSP

Blues Journeyman
Griff's email post the other day mentioned that he didn't mind sitting and playing scales for hours on end, while other players just get bored with scales. I would submit that Griff's method payed off pretty well - watch and listen to him play.
But, I think there's a limitation that is imposed by playing scales - and that is inherent in the fact that most scales involve playing ONE NOTE PER PICK OR FINGER STROKE, and a different note every time.
And that's a problem that I have struggled with for many years - the impulse, when improvising, to play a different note with every pick or finger stroke. Good improvisors regularly/often play the same note multiple times. In fact I think Griff states somewhere "if you hit a good note, hit it again".
I think I'll try playing a scale with multiple pick strokes. Maybe hit each note twice, maybe every second note twice, vary it around, try to find a better sound or a groovy sequence, or something new.
Something I just thought of - say you can play the minor blues scale OK at 90bpm. Try it with double-time pick strokes. Fretting hand still goes at 90bpm, but pick at 180, two pick strokes per note.
 

Silicon Valley Tom

It makes me happpy to play The Blues!
Try pull offs and hammer on going up and down the scale, makes it more interesting.

Plus add alternate picking (upstroke - downstroke) and triplets for some of your practice session. I like to spend about 5 minutes doing these things, just to get "warmed up"! :)

Tom


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JPsuff

Blackstar Artist
yep, you learn to hear the notes you want to play and find them

True.

Jimmy Page never learned scales and he seems to have done pretty good for himself.

Of course that doesn't mean that he didn't practice but rather that he practiced what he wanted to play (or what he heard in his head) and figured out how to make that happen.
 

jmin

Student Of The Blues
... I think there's a limitation that is imposed by playing scales - and that is inherent in the fact that most scales involve playing ONE NOTE PER PICK OR FINGER STROKE, and a different note every time.

I think I'll try playing a scale with multiple pick strokes. Maybe hit each note twice, maybe every second note twice, vary it around, try to find a better sound or a groovy sequence, or something new.
Something I just thought of - say you can play the minor blues scale OK at 90bpm. Try it with double-time pick strokes. Fretting hand still goes at 90bpm, but pick at 180, two pick strokes per note.

I think you figured out a good way to surpass the limitations, along with other good ideas! I wish I had learned more of the basics when I started. It just makes everything else easier. I think playing scales is a good warmup. Playing with scales is good practice! Have fun!
 

Paleo

Student Of The Blues
Hendrix didn't know theory.

The Beatles couldn't read music.

Page doesn't know scales.

Apparently I've wasted a helluva lot of time learning all three. :(o_O:confused::eek:
 

Elwood

Blues
Hendrix didn't know theory.

The Beatles couldn't read music.

Page doesn't know scales.

Apparently I've wasted a helluva lot of time learning all three. :(o_O:confused::eek:

Those jobs are all taken Paleo. (n)
Good thing too, you're doing a good job :thumbup: using what you like to use, :thumbup: to be the best damn Paleo we've ever heard!!! :Beer:

Scales are for fish right? o_O (I really need to learn lots more basic ones, yesterday!)
 

JPsuff

Blackstar Artist
Hendrix didn't know theory.

The Beatles couldn't read music.

Page doesn't know scales.

Apparently I've wasted a helluva lot of time learning all three. :(o_O:confused::eek:

I can't speak to Hendrix or the Beatles specifically (though I believe much of that is true, at least in their early days) but as for Page, he said so himself in an interview with Guitar International about ten years ago or so where it states (emphasis added):


"...Jimmy Page, the legendary guitarist of the Mighty Led Zeppelin, is one of those players. In an interview with Steve Rosen, he said, “I don’t just sit down and play scales and things. I should have done but I never did. I can’t play a scale. You think I’m kidding but I’m not. I can’t.” This is one of the world’s most beloved guitarists saying that he can’t play ANY scales. He didn’t just say there are some odd scales he’s unfamiliar with. He’s saying he would stumble over a C Major scale.

Apparently, you don’t need scales to be able to write or improvise incredible solos, like the many iconic journeys Page takes us on in songs like “Stairway to Heaven” and “Kashmir.” Instead of sitting down and practicing scales or techniques, Page just picks up “the acoustic guitar for a start and it’s usually in a tuning. I sort of change tunings around a bit and I’m searching for new chords and shapes and things.”..."

This of course doesn't mean that he didn't eventually learn more about scales as time went by but rather that he was more interested in going after whatever sounds he had in his mind and figuring out how to play them.

I myself was playing Pentatonic Minor and Blues scales long before I even knew what they were called or what notes they encompassed.
I just hit strings and frets until I found what I wanted to hear and then figured out the patterns. I found the Dorian mode the same way by virtue of fingering a different fret than the one I was aiming for and realizing that the note it produced sounded pretty cool and so I went in search of more such notes and "Voila!", the Dorian mode!

I'm not saying any one thing is right or wrong, but rather that people learn in different ways.
I've learned much since then about scales (and yes even some rudimentary theory), but to me that was more in the realm of supplemental knowledge instead of primary knowledge.

To paraphrase Griff from an email he sent a few years back: "If whatever it is you're doing produces the notes you want to hear in the way in which you want to hear them, then you're doing it the right way".

I can't argue with that! :Beer:

 

Iheartbacon

Blues Junior
When I practice scales, I don't play them straight up and down. I generally noodle up and down with hammer ons, pull offs, multiple strikes, bends, and pivots up and down at different places, not just the root. Sometimes I focus on one "position" at a time, others I focus on moving between positions and incorporate slides as well.

The goal is to get more comfortable moving around the fretboard, but I also want to maximize my practice time, so I am incorporating practicing other right and left hand techniques, and generally practicing close to how I will play.
 

Jack

Blues Junior
I've always practiced scales by improvising over a backing track. I mean, why else are you learning them, if not to be able to improvise with them? And noodling around over a backing track lets you memorize where the notes are just as well as playing through them from bottom to top etc. At the same time you're learning timing, you're noticing that different notes sound better over the I chord while others really fit well over the IV or V chord, and you're learning to move your fingers around in a non-memorized manner, just "noodling."
 
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