Memorizing Scales?

freakboy1610

Having played on and off (ten years off at one point) for the best part of thirty years I was recently struck by the realisation that I probably haven't improved by any significant degree since my mid twenties. As a result I had my first guitar lesson a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed it and since then I have been practising every day or at least as often as work, wife, children etc will allow. I've been given 4 scales to learn and whilst I can play them all, up and down and in time (using a metronome when the kids aren't in bed) I can't yet seem to get them to stick in my head or hands when I don't have the diagrams sitting in front of me. Does anyone have any tips or trick for memorizing scales or is it just a case of repetition? I should also mention that this is my first visit to the Theory section in two years on the forum!

Jookyjr

I can never remember them either, so I just spent some time on learning the intervals instead which is a lot easier.

Other than that, practise is all I guess

joeyowen

Crap answer of the day... but practise practise practise

As much as sight reading is a skill, it actually decreases retention which makes it harder to remember shapes etc..

Maybe play them to backing tracks and start to 'feel' the notes abit more

randomhandclaps

Fundamentally it is just practice.  One step the does help though is rather than solely practicing scales, practice just the intervals in the scales.  For example work up and down Root-5th-Root-5th... and R-3rd-5th working up to the arpeggios that under pin each scale.  It starts to become far easier to visualise anchor points (so to speak) rather than trying to picture whole shapes.  The varying anchor shapes are used for many scales also so you'll be building a strong foundation. 

Not only will this increase your understanding of note relations and scale structure but the greatest element at having these anchor shapes nailed is they will increase your confidence to take on scales as even improvising live, if you hit the wrong note you have a point of reference to return to both mentally and physically... And no-one in the audience will ever know.

Phil_aka_Pip

some scale shapes can be related to chord shapes (makes sense, as chords are built from notes picked out of scales), so it helps if you can see a chord shape embedded within a scale shape. this might help a bit with retention. any other technique you can find for remembering patterns also helps (eg some beginners can relate to the open D chord shape as a little triangle on the top 3 strings that points towards the bridge). Try to play the scale pattern as you have been doing but every 3rd (4th, 5th?) time try it with your eyes shut and listening to the sound of the notes - you should know what the scale you are trying to play sounds like so your ears will tell you if you played a bum note (less easy with scales that sound like they're all bum notes eg the super locrian, but I guess you're not quite at that stage yet)

octatonic

Don't play shapes, play intervals.

If you only play shapes then you haven't properly learned the scale- also it is fairly easy to spot guys who only know the shapes- they are always landing on the wrong scale degrees when improvising.

Scales have avoid notes in them- for instance the 4th is an avoid note to hit on a downbeat a lot of the time.

A compound learning approach is to use a pen and paper to run through the scales (ideally on staff paper, but a lot of people resist this, so writing it out longhand is fine) and noting the intervals between each interval.

When you understand scales as a series of stacked 3rd's (let's deal with major scale and modes as these are the most applicable to the music most of us make) across 2 octaves it improves you knowledge of scales and your knowledge of chords.

It helps if you understand how scales were derived.

For instance- the C Major scale is CDEFGAB right?

Well what about approaching it this way.

Start with C and stack 3rd's (major and minor) in the following order:

C E G B D F A

This is the same number of notes presented in an order that is much more useful.

For a start, it helps you with extended chords- for a start you see that you can extend the tonic chord of C (C Maj7) beyond being just 4 notes.

C E G B D F A

R 3 5 7 9 11 13

See the last 3 notes of this 3rd stack as DFA?

DFA is a D minor triad.

So you can express any major scale in the following simple way:

A major 7 chord on the tonic and a minor triad off the 2nd degree.

Or you can think of it as a major triad off the tonic and a half diminished chord off the 7th degree.

You can use it as an improvisational tool- for instance if you play a minor 7th arpeggio off the major 3rd you imply a major 9th chord.

This is one way jazz musicians improvise- it is a very deep, expressive way of thinking about musical scales and so much more beneficial to you as a musician than just learning a shape.

Shapes are hard to apply- this stuff is endlessly engaging- it isn't just useful for jazz- I'm primarily a rock guitarist and I try to think in these terms when writing/improvising solos- you might not be doing quite so much with extended chords in a rock genre but it still helps a lot.

thomasross20

We've got to pull you back from the dark side, @octatonic! Rock 4eva!

octatonic

Quite.

Barney

try thinking of them without the guitar ...just visualise where your fingers would go ...even if its just 2 strings at a time then build on that...2 advantages ..it helps visualise the fretboard without relying on muscle memory.....and you don't need a guitar to do it.... oh and still practice as normal cos repetition makes things stick especially over a while

Alnico

freakboy1610 said:

Having played on and off (ten years off at one point) for the best part of thirty years I was recently struck by the realisation that I probably haven't improved by any significant degree since my mid twenties. As a result I had my first guitar lesson a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed it and since then I have been practising every day or at least as often as work, wife, children etc will allow. I've been given 4 scales to learn and whilst I can play them all, up and down and in time (using a metronome when the kids aren't in bed) I can't yet seem to get them to stick in my head or hands when I don't have the diagrams sitting in front of me. Does anyone have any tips or trick for memorizing scales or is it just a case of repetition? I should also mention that this is my first visit to the Theory section in two years on the forum!

Chess.

Think of the fretboard like a chess board and memorise the scales as moves..........

so a fifth above the root note played on the 6th string is one string across and two frets up, same move as a KNIGHT makes on a chess board.

does that make sense because it works in my head ?

viz

The question is, do you truly know what the scales sound like in your head, without thinking? You have to know that before you start trying to replicate them.

samzadgan

i dont know many scales (hardly any)...mainly because i've never gone to classes (few introductory ones but never pursued it)...but i would say listen to the notes rather than just playing the patterns...if you can hear the what your playing, then you have a better chance remembering them when you play them.

I may be way off, since im not a theory guy...but it makes sense to me...

close2u

What scales? And in how many positions? (How many patterns of each) IMHO, 4 is too many to learn at once. Especially if you are learning more than one position. /pattern.

Sibelius

Play very slowly and play each note twice as you ascend/descend 

then three times and then four times

Sing the scale as you play it (slowly)

Don't spend more than 5 minutes at a time playing them. You'll just switch off, mentally. 

freakboy1610

Thanks for all the helpful advice guys. I've printed it all off and will be trying stuff out as I go along. Once again this forum proves to be an excellent resource! Second lesson tonight.

GuyBoden

GuyBoden said:

When you practice, try singing each note's name. This reinforces not just the note's name, but it's fretboard location and importantly, it's sound.

thomasross20

Major scale modes, pentatonics and arpeggios. That's about as much as I use and even then after 15+ years it takes work. Whole tone etc are ok but I rarely use them. I once tried the modes of melodic & harmonic minor but it's like learning everything all over again (to an extent). A small shame as some of the more interesting chordal work I've done uses notes from those scales.  

seany65

I suppose it could be helpful if you first learned every note up and down each string and then across the strings at the 1st position, 2nd position, etc. then you'll know where every note is, and all you'll have to do to learn a new scale is write a list of the scale's notes and memorise it and when you look at the fretboard you'll be able to 'see' where the notes are. Once you've learned that, you'll be able to look away from the guitar while still playing.

Flink_Poyd

octatonic said:

It helps if you understand how scales were derived.

For instance- the C Major scale is CDEFGAB right?

Well what about approaching it this way.

Start with C and stack 3rd's (major and minor) in the following order:

C E G B D F A

This is the same number of notes presented in an order that is much more useful.

For a start, it helps you with extended chords- for a start you see that you can extend the tonic chord of C (C Maj7) beyond being just 4 notes.

C E G B D F A

R 3 5 7 9 11 13

See the last 3 notes of this 3rd stack as DFA?

DFA is a D minor triad.

So you can express any major scale in the following simple way:

A major 7 chord on the tonic and a minor triad off the 2nd degree.

Or you can think of it as a major triad off the tonic and a half diminished chord off the 7th degree.

You can use it as an improvisational tool- for instance if you play a minor 7th arpeggio off the major 3rd you imply a major 9th chord.

This is one way jazz musicians improvise- it is a very deep, expressive way of thinking about musical scales and so much more beneficial to you as a musician than just learning a shape.

Shapes are hard to apply- this stuff is endlessly engaging- it isn't just useful for jazz- I'm primarily a rock guitarist and I try to think in these terms when writing/improvising solos- you might not be doing quite so much with extended chords in a rock genre but it still helps a lot.

I find memorizing scale shapes pretty easy, play through them a few times and it starts to stick. This sounds really useful but Im struggling to understand how you do this. Not sure what you mean by "stack 3rds" etc

mike_l

Flink_Poyd said:

Not sure what you mean by "stack 3rds" etc

Taking the scale notes (I'll use C major) and numbering them, so

C=1

D=2

E=3

F=4

G=5

A=6

B=7

To stack thirds it 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 etc, so every 3rd note.

Flink_Poyd

mike_l said:

Flink_Poyd said:

Not sure what you mean by "stack 3rds" etc

Taking the scale notes (I'll use C major) and numbering them, so

C=1

D=2

E=3

F=4

G=5

A=6

B=7

To stack thirds it 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 etc, so every 3rd note.

Thanks, Im much more of a visual learner so anything like that scrambles my brain if written/typed.