Guillaume jeulin (guillaume.jeulin[at]bluecatonline.org)
How
to remember scales on the guitar
Introduction
The aim of this
article is to explain a method to learn and remember easily scales on the
guitar. The method is based on patterns and cycles. This is the way I remember
scales and find it pretty easy to remember.
Prerequisites
Scales
, guitar basics.
Main Principle
Instead of remembering
all positions of a scale on the neck (pretty boring and fastidious), this
method consists in remembering the cycle of patterns that you play on each
string of the guitar so that whatever the position you are able to predict the
next pattern to play on the next string.
The only drawback of
this method is that you have sometimes to move from your position (your first
finger won’t strictly stay on the same fret), but the great thing is that you
just have to remember one cycle of patterns (as if you just had to remember
only one position per scale).
In this article we
will only develop the method for the major scale and then just give the cycle
of pattern for other scales.
Major scale Pattern
Playing 3 notes per
string, the major scale cycle is formed with 3 different basic patterns.
First one, repeated 3
times:
Second one, repeated
twice:
Third one, repeated
twice:
And then back to first
one… This is a cycle.
This produces the
following sequence on a virtual neck with seven strings (The full cycle is
seven patterns, which is logical since there are 7 notes in the scale, we play
3 notes per string, and 3 and 7’s smallest multiple is 3x7=21 notes per cycle):
We consider above a
virtual neck with seven strings tuned with 4ths. This way you can
remember easily the patterns and the way they follow each other independently
from the major third interval between the G string and the B string.
On a real guitar neck,
starting with the tonic on the first string (one pattern will be missing since
we have only 6 strings), given the fact that the interval between the G string
and the B string is a major third instead of a forth, so that you move your pattern
one fret on the right:
Thinking this way it
is very easy to remember your scale on the neck: whatever the position and the
string, you just need to know where you are in the cycle and then the rest will
come naturally under your fingers…
Minor scale
The patterns are the
same as for the major scale since the notes are the same. The only change is
the tonic:
On a guitar neck:
Minor Harmonic Scale
There are two
approaches for this one. You can either think with the major
scale pattern and remember that the note just before the tonic is closer
(half a tone instead of a whole tone), or you can learn the patterns cycle. In
this case there are four patterns and the cycle is a bit more complicated.
On a guitar neck:
Pentatonic Scale
The pentatonic is very
easy to remember as you have only 5 notes and 2 patterns. As you play two notes
per string, the cycle is 5 patterns only. The only thing to remember is that
next cycle will take place one fret on the left (see last pattern):
On a guitar neck:
Whole Tone
Scale
The easiest way to
play this scale is to use the cycle built with two patterns on one position:
Any comment, question, related information? Please contact me!