Lead Guitar Lessons: Mastering Scales

By Tyler Allison


The first thing a guitarist will tell you if you ask them about how to get your first important lead guitar lessons is that you need to first become familiar with the pentatonic scale. This is a scale in which there are 5 notes and this scale also happens to be very easy to learn and remember. Once you learn about this, it is then time that you learned the major scales that normally contain all the different notes from the pentatonic scale plus two additional notes.

If you wish to master the major scale you will need to begin by learning the C major scale that is actually nothing but all the tones on the white keys of your keyboard/piano. Before actually using the major scale you must have a good idea about what an octave really is. An octave is a note that has twice the frequency of another note. Each note however has one unique name and the octave in fact is half the frequency of the note that precedes it.

The musical scales on your guitar fretboard are just divisions of octaves and these are divided into steps. In Western music, these scales are made up of semitones which are twelve equal steps. One fret is equal to one semitone while two frets are equal to one whole tone. The major scale is certainly the one scale that is played the most.

The next part of your lead guitar lessons should involve learning the C major scale on your guitar. In order to play the scales in the proper manner, you should start with the sixth string being an open note. From here you can progress higher in pitch but be sure to pick with the help of both up strokes as well as down strokes. It does in fact pay to begin with a down stroke on the open E string and then follow that with an up stroke on the F string and down on the G and continue in this vein.

When playing the major scale, be sure to play from the open E string up to the G note on the 3rd fret of the first string and then go back in the same way that you came down. These kinds of lead guitar lessons will help you get your fingers attuned so that they move forward as well as backward properly and such lessons will also help you to improve your coordination between right and left hand.

These are the basics of learning to play the lead guitar. There is much more to learn but you can start with finding all the octaves which can best be done by looking for patterns that show you where an octave is present.

Start off by identifying the octaves and this you can do by searching out patterns which show that an octave happens to be present in the pattern. This will help you play the lead guitar more effectively.

Last but not least, pay attention to important lead guitar lessons that show you how to work with patterns on your lead guitar. One such lesson is learning to follow the rule which states one fret per finger.




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