Are you over the age of 40 years old and you still can't play a scale on guitar? I'm sure you want to learn how to play a scale, so in this lesson, I’m going to show you a simple step by step scale study method that is guaranteed to help anyone to be able to start playing not one, but two neck patterns of a scale...




Surprisingly, getting started into learning scales is not something that is going to require you to study for hours on end, learning from endless sheets of TAB, or from pages upon pages of guitar neck diagrams. 

It’s actually going to be quite the opposite!

In fact, you’re only going to need to focus on 'one basic shape' across the upper fingerboard, and then another easy to play scale shape down in the lower region. That's it!

WATCH THE VIDEO:




LEARNING A SCALE:
In this lesson, I want to help students who are past their thirty’s, maybe in their 40’s or 50’s (or older), who’ve never learned how to play any scales. 

Believe it, or not, there are a lot of older guitar students out there who’ve never learned anything about scales, and this lesson is going to be dedicated to helping all of you guys get started on learning this topic together.

Sadly, this is more prevalent than you might think! In fact, when I was just recently purchasing my new Fender Telecaster, the guy who sold it to me, was an older gentleman who admitted that he had never spent the time to learn his scales either.

So, let’s make sure that you learn how scales work on guitar! And, we’ll get things started here today by establishing our first scale layout for you - right here, right now…





SIMPLE SCALE (Shape 1).
Our first scale layout will be a pattern that operates up higher on the guitar neck where most guitar solos are performed. Here’s how it sits on the fret-boar.




This pattern (above) is called the, “Major Pentatonic” shape. And, this shape uses 5 notes. Our naming note here, is “F.” This note is what is called the “Tonic,” (or sometimes it might be referred to as the, “Root” note).

This is the note that ties our scale to the chord and it also represents the key that we would use to create melody lines and solos with.

Pentatonic scales are great to learn at first because they are simple and they’re also effective scales for soloing. As, “BB King” once said, the Pentatonic scale has, “just enough notes to sound right, but not enough to get you in trouble.”

If we add just “two” additional notes into the Pentatonic, we get what’s called the full-scale, (sometimes it’s also called the diatonic Major Scale, or also the, “Major Key” Scale).

Here’s how it looks on the neck, the full-scale added tones are highlighted in red for you.

Simple Scale (1) with additional key signature notes added...


NOTE:
The additional notes added are "B♭" and "E."





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I wanted to take a minute to let you know, that if you want to learn even more about scales and theory I have a great offer for you.

With any donation over $5, or any merchandise purchase from either my Tee-Spring, or my Zazzle store, I’ll send you a free copy of THREE of my most popular digital handouts.

One is called, “Harmonized Arpeggio Drills” (it’ll train you on developing your diatonic arpeggios).

Another one is my “Barre Chord” handout which includes a page showing all the key signatures along with a chord progression that applies barre chords.

Plus, you’ll get my Notation Pack! It has 8 pages of important guitar worksheets for notating anything related to; music charts, guitar chord diagrams, and TAB.

As a BONUS for this video, I'll also throw in a breakdown of all of the chords that are diatonic to the "F Major" scale.

As an EXTRA BONUS for my Phrygian Dominant video, I'll also throw in a breakdown featuring all of the chords that are diatonic to the Phrygian Dominant scale.

Just send me an email off of the contact page of CreativeGuitarStudio.com to let me know about either your donation or your Merchandise purchase and I’ll email you those digital handouts within 24 hrs.

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SIMPLE SCALE (Shape 2).
Now that you’ve learned the "F Major" scales in the upper area of the neck, I also want to show you a pattern (for this same scale), down in the lower and mid-region positions. 

Here’s how our Pentatonic looks in the low area of the neck.



Just as we had done with the Major Pentatonic scale (when it was located up higher on the neck), we’re going to do the exact same thing with this lower pattern of the Major Pentatonic – we’re going to create a full 7-tone “Diatonic” scale from the 5-tone “Pentatonic” scale.

Here’s the "two" added scale tones (B♭ and E), that will get added into the Pentatonic scale, (you’ll notice them highlighted on the fingerboard diagram below as red dots).


NOTE:
The additional notes of, "B♭" and "E," create the "full diatonic" scale, (also known in music as the Basic Major Key scale of, "Ionian Mode").





SCALE APPLICATION:
Once you learn the scale pattern shapes, the next step is to keep them in your memory. To do that you must start immediately applying them! 

It is so vital to your long-term memory that you get some chord changes going on in the background so that the scales can start to get applied in a realistic way - as quickly as possible.

Around the studio here, one of my favorite ways of helping students do this, is by sending them to a great web-site called, “Chord Chord.” Visit the site using the link below:


Let me show you how easy it is to use this Chord website to create chord progressions for practicing the scales with!


CHORDCHORD TUTORIAL: