Learning scales & chords

[Don Moose]

I finally got a guitar again after 10 years or so, and decided I should actually learn the danged scales & chords so I can move away from the Ramones and AC/DC that make up most of my repertoire.

My last teacher, some 30 years ago, advised that I should learn the scales by note - say the name of the note as I played it - you know, A - B - C# ...

It hit me yesterday that it might be more useful and flexible to learn the intervals instead - a pentatonic would go I - II - III - V - VI - I.

Since the scale patterns stay the same - just like barre chords - just shifting frets to change to a new root.

How wrong am I?

[GibsonLover]

There are as many ways to learn as there are people, but I think your interval approach makes the most sense. To me, chords and especially chord construction are the things to learn. Most beginners know one or two maj7 chord forms, but you can easily play 6 or 7 inversions of the same notes up and down the neck. Once you learn several maj7 forms (for example) and move on to min7 forms, you become very aware of 'what's different' and associate the intervals with the sound of it. It helps with ear training and nailing down the physical position of the intervals in the chord you are playing. Once you are familiar with the position of the intervals, you will have all the notes for arpaggios that soloing will come from. In the end, you'll probably learn the note names too, but probably long after you have memorized the 'reach', or change, necessary to flat the third in a major chord to make it minor.

[Steve Conner]

I played guitar ever since I was a kid, and was mostly self-taught. Last year I decided to go for some guitar lessons, and this is more or less how the guy taught it.

The main reason to learn the scales by note names is if you're learning piano, when the fingerings are actually different for different keys. You can't just move a riff up 3 frets on a piano.

However, this pianistic way of seeing things is still useful, it makes life a lot easier if you ever want to learn to read sheet music. The reason is that there isn't a 1-to-1 correspondence between the lines on the musical stave and the fretboard of the guitar, like there is with tablature. You need to translate it all through the uneven pattern of tones and semitones that corresponds to the white keys on the piano.

Well, in the key of C anyway. In other keys, it's a bunch of different patterns, on the piano you need to learn 24 in all, but on the guitar you can reuse just one major and one minor by moving them up and down the fretboard.

Or you can do everything modal, which is a neat way of learning lots of new patterns. If you learn the modes, you get a bunch of major and minor scales in every key for free.