[Das Alt Peruke]

Scales can be very useful to anyone who can only play chords and has not developed the ability to move with versatility in a linear fashion. If you follow Commander Kirks advice and make melody you benchmark and avoid Cling ons, and treat scales like a Ballerinas Bar, a tool to develop the dance, not the dance itself, they can be a great tool to give facility in linear movement and the mechanics involved, but they almost always must be practised along with arpeggios or you will be stuck in 2nds hell. They also build a good instinctive knowledge of what will happen if I stick my finger here next... especially if you sing along with them, and when playing 2 chord vamps chord shape basis can be as bad as scales in multi chord settings limiting ideas like Santanas songs he almost has to play dorians scales. Guitar is a manually dextrous exercise in alot of respects and they will develop that, but I have found playing lots of tunes in lots of keys just as written (provided they are harmonically interesting)to be very good also, as is Jelly wresting.