31
Most Practical Scales to Learn
Filed Under (Exercise, Random Thought, Scales) by Frank on 31-07-2008
Tagged Under : Box, Box Pattern, Box Position, Scales
I was about to start working on some random scales on GuitarCardio.com, when something that Kenski wrote as a comment a while back. A new comment on that page reminded me about it.
Kenski wrote “As a starting point I would advocate learning the box position for major scale“. I had started looking in to the Box Position, but I never really understood what it was. I looked and looked and never came to any conclusion. I did find a bunch of good material, but I never really understood it…
And I still don’t. I found this: http://www.myguitarsolo.com/sc_box.htm
And while I understand what it is saying — run through the 6 scales on the same key — it doesn’t completely make sense. The scale patterns don’t match other sources.
Consider my other Google Result: http://www.robinmay.co.uk/index/independent_pages/view_independent_pages/10/
Is there no rule to this? If not, then why is this worth learning? If there is some form of rules, are they loose rules?
Any guidance would be appricated.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Hey Frank. Just a quick one (hopefully!) Don’t think about all the different possible boxes and scales. Focus on one at a time. The use of boxes is an artificial construct intended to make it easier for fingers to learn scales without moving up or down the neck, ie keeping your fretting hand in one position, only moving your fingers. Obviously you could learn a scale by running notes up one string, but in the real world, that’s not easy to do smoothly and takes too much effort. It’s much easier to be accurate if you play 2 or 3 notes on one string then move to the next one to play the following notes in a sequence. The rule with guitar is: less movement = less possibility of screwing up = you can play faster and more accurately.
Typically a ‘box’ will show you how to play 2 octaves of a scale from the low E string to the high E string. The boxes are not set in stone, BUT, the often-documented ones are ones that people have found work in most situations.
The hope is that if you drill yourself on the box positions then your finger memory will allow you let go and just play the notes in any scale. The more box positions your fingers learn, the easier it gets to improvise.
Once you learn enough boxes, you can start to think about moving between the boxes, up and down the fingerboard. That’s where the fun starts…
Kenskis last blog post..Song Writing
Hey Kenski,
Thanks for stopping by and furthermore thank you for more information!
Very interesting… I think I understand what you are saying.
Is there an “official” set of scales that would make up the “box position”?
Would the official set be Pentatonic, Dorian, Aeolian (Minor), Phrygian, Locrian and Mixolydian? Or is that just one person’s interpretation of a Box?
Or does the actual scales not matter? Does what matters is that you are playing in the same key in about the same position?
Thank you again,
Frank
A box position is really just a generic term used to describe a way of grouping (all) the notes of a scale into a short stretch of the fingerboard, usually 4 frets (so one fret per finger).
Occasionally people allow themselves to shift up a couple of frets or down a couple of frets if it’s easier for them. Sometimes (particularly shredders) like to make huge boxes with 3 notes per string, which gives your hand a real workout, but can be convenient if you want to play fast runs with lots of hammer-ons.
One might typically learn to play any given scale ascending then descending within a box, but the real value comes when you start playing around, mixing the notes of the scale up, creating licks.
If you look at the fingerboard without knowing which notes are good to play over a chord progression then you’d have to use trial and error to see which notes fit. If you learn an appropriate scale on one string then that’s great, but all the notes will be so spread out that it’s difficult to navigate between them. BUT, if you memorise a box position then you have a roadmap for all the notes in the scale and you can jump around (a bit like twister) with the minimum effort.
Following on from that, you can learn the box positions all the way up the neck and figure out the best way for you to get between the boxes.
Kenskis last blog post..Sexy People & Superstars
Wait, so it’s not a series of scales, but a single scale within the same position?
Thanks again Kenski!