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Making sense of guitar scales

Hi there. I’ve written this series on music scales especially for the guitarists who have been playing for a while, but are completely lost when it comes to the idea of dealing with scales and finding their way around the fret board, especially at the higher end of the guitar. If that’s you, welcome aboard! If I’ve done it right, at the end of the series you will know:

1. What a scale is.
2. How to work out the name of any note on any string of your guitar.
3. How to play one scale on various positions of your fretboard.
4. What issues to consider if you want to extend your scales knowledge and practice.

Here is the list of lessons in this series. You can start at the beginning if you know nothing, or jump in the middle if you prefer.

• Key definitions
• A creative way of thinking about scales
• The major scale concept
• Naming the notes of the major scale (and your fretboard)
• Our first scale across the strings
• Tidying up our left hand fingering
• Scales up and down the fretboard
• Where to from here?

(Need help interpreting the guitar tab symbols used throughout this site? Click here)

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