Learning Lead Guitar Scales - A Powerful Tip

Learning to master lead guitar scales can be an incredibly frustrating experience for some. There are just so many scales to learn, and not enough time to learn them in! So what’s the answer? How do you internalize guitar scales AND also enjoy the process of doing it? Over time we’ll look at many ideas, but for now let’s take a look at a really powerful tip that I feel will help you a lot…

Lead Guitar Scales Tip:  Learn One Scale At A Time

This is the overall philosophy of The Guitar Scale Mastery System. It is the concept of learning one scale on a very deep level before moving onto the next scale. This is something that most guitarists don’t do. They usually move onto the next scale before they have mastered the first. This lack of patience with their practice causes them to never truly MASTER a single lead guitar scale! Results? They usually never feel “at home” with scales. And this usually means they struggle with playing guitar solos that use scales in a musical way.

A Short Story…

I’m embarassed to admit that when I first started guitar teaching I used to overwhelm students by handing them sheets filled with many scales. I thought I was doing my job by giving them lots of different scales to learn. I equated good teaching to handing out vast amounts of information. And do you know what? This did NOT work! Only the most talented students could absorb all the lead guitar scales I gave them. The rest felt overwhelmed and really didn’t know where to start.

When I noticed the poor results my “teaching” method was getting, I then tried an experiment. I gave students only ONE scale to learn. And over the period of quite a few lessons, I showed them how to master that ONE scale over the entire fretboard. This approach worked. In fact…the results blew me away. Some of the things that I noticed by using this teaching approach included…

• My students actually enjoyed practicing scales.
• My students started to improvise with that scale in a very musical way.
• My students felt a sense of progress.
• My students felt more confident overall as guitar players.
• My students never felt overwhelmed which made them much more enthusiastic and positive about their learning process.
• My students technique improved drastically.

And the cool thing is…

This approach worked for everyone. And it will work for you. But I have to warn you…

If you have never used this approach before, you will be getting outside of your comfort zone. It may require you to practice scales in a new way…sticking to one scale for as long as it takes to master it. If it takes a month…great! If it takes 3 months…great! If it takes longer…that’s fine also. It will take as long as it takes.

I know I’m really hammering this point home. It is that important. What I’m saying is not based on abstract useless theory. It is based on many years of teaching experience and many years of studying scales. I know it works! It is the approach that I use to learn scales myself. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything that I’m not doing myself.

I know some people might be sceptical of this approach. To them, I say…

Just give it a go! Commit to it 100% and see what happens. Before this day has ended choose ONE scale that you would like to learn. Then commit to learning it.

I hope you enjoyed this article. If you are truly serious about mastering lead guitar scales, and would like some help, then be sure to learn more about the Guitar Scale Mastery membership website.