Thread: scales
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Old October 24th, 2006
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Chaotic Kittie Chaotic Kittie is offline
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Quote:
Thanks to the independence and elasticity which the fingers develop through the study of scales,
I don't really agree with "independence". Just practising scales up and down won't bring independence, you'll still follow a pattern. Getting stuck in that pattern is a real pain!

If you intend to learn scales, don't just run them up and down, vary them a lot. Play patterns like 1 3 2 5 7 6 4 instead of 1234567, practise finding them on just 1 string, etc etc. You don't want your muscle memory to lock the positions of the scales, it can lock your creativity when playing too.

Technically they are, as justapicker said, a great way of learning techniques like speed picking, hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides and to control your picking.

Whether scales are any use or not can be discussed, but if you learn a scale, then don't learn it repetitive.


We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
- George Bernard Shaw
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