If you want to learn how to play lead guitar and create your own solos and improvisations over music you will need to first learn how to play guitar scales, and further to that learn to play them anywhere on the fretboard.
We will start our journey by looking into the four basic guitar scales that you will need to master, they are the major, minor, major pentatonic and minor pentatonic. After looking at each guitar scale you will be given a practice routine and by the end of this guitar lesson you will be ready to kick out the jams with Tom Morello!
The best picking technique to use when learning how to play guitar scales is the alternate picking method, it is simply a down stroke on the first note followed by an up stroke on the second, then alternating back and forth as you progress through the scale or practice routine.
I can not emphasize enough the importance of playing to a metronome or an adjustable tempo track, start off with a tempo that is very comfortable for you, one that you can easily play in time to without thinking too much.
The Major Scale
Major scales sound great when you use them in short runs, we’re going to look at them first in this guitar lesson. The tonal pattern for the Major Scale is below, you will want to write this down somewhere and study it until it becomes tattooed on your brain. So we have something to work with we will look at the C Major Scale.
C to D : tone
D to E : tone
E to F : semi-tone
F to G : tone
G to A : tone
A to B : tone
B to C : semi-tone
There’s a C major exercise for you to try at our website, completely free of course, just look for the Learn Guitar Scales section.
The Minor Scale
Just like the Major scales the Minor guitar scales use a tonal pattern to work out which notes fit. You can find the relative Minor of a Major scale by identifying the 6th note in the Major Scale. For our C Major Scale this is A, and here is how the Minor scale is constructed:
A to B : tone
B to C : semi-tone
C to D : tone
D to E : tone
E to F : semi-tone
F to G : tone
G to A : semi-tone
The exercise for the A Minor can be freely accessed at InstantGuitarist.com under Learn Guitar Scales.
Major Pentatonic Scales
A pentatonic scale is one that is comprised of only 5 notes, and as such these are easy to learn and use when improvising over backing tracks and creating new lead lines. To create a Major Pentatonic scale we take just the first, second, third, fifth and sixth notes from the Major Scale. So looking at our C Major Scale this would work out to be the notes: C, D, E, G and A.
Your C Major Pentatonic practice routine:
The Minor Pentatonic Scale
Time for the big boy, this is what you will use most of the time. The Minor Pentatonic Scale is easy to learn and fun to play, as with the Major version it contains just 5 notes and can be found from the relative minor to the key you are playing. For C Major we get to A Minor and the A Minor pentatonic guitar scale has the following notes A – C – D – E – G.
Your homework assignment for the A Minor scale is something which will get you onto the road of becoming a lead guitarist. I want you to first find a YouTube video for Eric Clapton’s incredibly famous song “Layla”. Listen to it the whole way through 3-5 times first.
What I want you to do is use the Minor Pentatonic scale in the key of D (starting on the 5th fret of the A string) and just improvise in time with the music over the chorus and solo. Anything goes so don’t be shy, have fun with it and I hope you find out how exciting improvising can be. Here’s the solo that you can use to practice with:
Mastering lead guitar is something that all guitarists should undertake, Adam Summers provides more information so you can learn how to play guitar as quickly as possible. Check out the extra resources under Lead Guitar so you can learn guitar scales fast.
