Musical Style: Exercise
Skill Level: Beginner
Focus Technique: Major Scale in a single position.
Playing this kind of scale allows you to center your playing in a single position whilst you reach over two octaves. Great advantage whilst sight reading and strengthens fingers and develops dexterity evenly.
This major scale, here shown in the key of Amaj can be played in this format from as low as F3 on the second fret all the way up to the highest fret on your guitar. Rather than just running this exercise like a scale, it’s great to play the rights slightly out of order. This video shows the notes being played as 1st then 3rd then 2nd then 4th then 3rd then 5th then 4th then 6th then 5th then 7th then 6th then 8th then 7th etc. It’s an excellent technique for using a turn around in soloing.
Like all scales and practice, it’s an excellent idea to also call out the names of the notes as you play them. Being able to name the notes on cue is a great skill for identifying where the notes on the neck of the guitar are and what they are called. Once a student has the notes of one key they move to the next. This moving across multiple positions starts to come into its own and you start to see how the keys cross-pollinate with each other. This is a really exciting time in a players journey as they see how music works on an instrument, rather than just practising the mechanical movements over the fretboard of the guitar. Its this deeper knowledge and understanding of the instrument and music that we as music and guitar teachers are most passionate about teaching and sharing. Playing the guitar is a rewarding and pleasurable endeavour, but being able to understand, write and compose your own music on an instrument is an incredibly motivating and creative pastime or profession. Being able to truly unleash creativity in a written form that can then be shared with other musicians to perform is why we do what we do.