Daily guitar and musicianship practice ideas, part 2 (of 4)

Learning and practising scales and modes

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Part Two (of four)

Learning and practising scales and modes

As stated this daily guitar and musicianship practice ideas article will be in four parts.

• Part one covers diatonic harmony from the perspective of a songwriter.

• Part two (this part) covers how to approach learning and practising scales and modes.

• Part three’s focus is the topic of a deeper understanding of guitar chords.

• Part four’s focus is chord progressions and ways to approach improvisation

Today’s article will focus upon:

• Which scales and modes to practice?

• Singing scales as you play them / ear training.

• Pitch intervals.

• Learning to play and sing different scales and modes in different ways.

  • For example, in different positions or on a single string, whilst singing them in different ways, for example by note name or by interval name. Doing this eventually creates an instantly accessible internalised guitar fretboard matrix, which allows you to be able to play what you’re hearing. It also helps develop and train your musical ear (so what you’re hearing is actually musically reliable), and trains you to be able to accurately sing what you hear, and when you sing it to be able to play it at the same time.

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