Singe String Scales
This lesson will at first feel silly, counterproductive and sometimes juvenile. This exercise is designed to help you play outside the box. It can be applied to any scale in any key. I've included another Lesson "Two String Scale”; another article that goes hand in hand with this one.
I personally have found that when I learned scales I wound up trying to solo in the little pattern boxes. When I ran out of ideas I then would slide down to another pattern box. In turn my soloing efforts were pretty lame. I always admired the guitar players who seemed to seamlessly play over the entire neck. The conclusion that I came to was that I was visualizing the scale in little box patterns and not the scale over the entire fret board. I’m not sure about you but last time I watched SRV jam on Austin City Limits, he wasn’t playing in any little boxes.
My intentions for this lesson are to re-condition your mind to seeing the entire scale over the entire fret board, and break you of these habits.
Whenever you decide to sit down and learn a new scale I would highly recommend using only one finger and run thought the scale one note at a time, one string at a time. Concentrate on playing the correct notes rather than speed. As you master the new scale string by string, you can then progress to the "Two String Scales" and then on your own apply the same techniques to 3 and four strings until you’re covering the entire fret board. By doing this you will be surprised how quickly you will learn the scale over the entire fret board.
Additionally by naming the notes of the scale as you play them you will embed the scale note into your brain as well and enforce your knowledge of all the notes of the fret board.
Have questions? Check out our forum on this lesson - Singe String Scales Discussion
