5 replies to this topic

[Old Mr. Wilson]

What scales should I "focus" on mostly? How often should I do them? Everyday? Every other day? Should I practice chord families and after awhile start trying to strum some songs? Any and all help appreciated. Wilson

[allthumbs]

IMO it is better to start with chords and get a good grounding of chord progressions and song construction. You learn a bunch of chords, you've learned a bunch of tunes. You learn a bunch of scales and you have learned a bunch of scales. Without chord progressions to play over, scales have no context.

[knight46]

I will agree 100% with AT, chord and chord tones are the way to go.

[Kirk Lorange]

Ditto ... chord families are good! Lock them in (and the way they sound) and you're halfway there. But, if you do want to dabble with scales, focus on the major scale. All other scales relate back to it, and all those numbers you see next to chord names refer to it, so knowing it is essential. The most important thing to remember about it is that it's a sequence of intervals:

Tone Tone Semitone, Tone Tone Tone semitone.

Actually playing it is far less important than understanding what it is.

[ociaby]

I think guitar gods sometimes forget how hard it is for a beginner to strum a chord. Its important to learn chords but its also important to make music that's pleasant to listen to. I started learning the guitar by learning the minor pentatonic scale. When I first played the notes of the scale out of sequence, it was so amazing to realise that I had made music. I wrote 3 articles about my experience learning to play the guitar - go to guitarnoise.com and search for abbott

[Old Mr. Wilson]

Thank you all. I will focus on chords and chord families and progressions. Thank you again.