The forgotten finger: Your left thumb

In many routine activities (such as turning a doorknob or picking up a spoon) your fingers and thumb grasp together. This tendency often continues when placing your hand around the neck of a guitar, which leads to tension in the hand and other fingers. Your left thumb should normally rest gently against the back of the neck without squeezing. There are times (such as barring) when the thumb must apply a little pressure, but normally the fingers should do their own work, assisted by the lower arm as needed. Imagine a large rubber band from the back of your elbow to a wall behind you, gently pulling your arm back and helping to keep the fingers firmly against the fingerboard. It's also important to keep the left wrist loose as there is sometimes a tendency to bend the wrist inward towards the fingerboard to help increase finger pressure.

How to Practice Scales

Classical Guitar Scales

Scales are probably the first thing that comes to mind when we think of practice and technical development. The idea that practicing scales makes you a better musician seems to be universally accepted yet in the case of the classical guitar the 'mythology' of scale practice seems a little over-rated. Scales occur frequently in music written for violins, flutes and piano however, they come up rarely in the guitar repertoire. A full octave scale is actually quite hard to come by in much of the literature and when there is a long scale passage in a work it stands out partly because it is so rare. Violin and piano repertoire on the other hand is absolutely littered with virtuosic scale runs that span genres from the Baroque to the present day. It stands to reason, then, that we do not practice scales to be prepared for the occasional scale run in a piece.

The process of running up and down a scale, which is a very common way of practicing scales, is pointless.

So why do we practice scales ?

Scales are tools. They are simple frameworks that we can use to hone in on specific technical elements. Once those elements have been worked on in isolation they can be incorporated into music making, which is the ultimate goal of any technical work.

The process of running up and down a scale, which is a very common way of practicing scales, is pointless. Without a specific focus to practicing a scale then the time is wasted without any goals being reached. The scale itself may become familiar and fluid but seeing as there are few actual applications of a scale in a piece the process really is, pointless.

Scales are incredibly useful, however, if assigned a goal and function. One function might be to practice crescendo and diminuendo another could be to practice staccato articulations yet another is a variety of rhythms. As you may start to realize, the ways to use a scale to work on technical aspects is almost as diverse as your imagination. A more complete list of scale suggestions is written below and I encourage you to come up with your own uses for scale practice.

It could be argued that scales are useful for becoming acquainted with the fingerboard and learning key centers. This could be absolutely true although the common tendency to memorize scale 'patterns' on the guitar prevents any real development of these skills. If you doubt this, ask the next scale wiz that you come across to sight read some Bach ;)

Click here for THE ULTIMATE SCALE BOOK

Here are some suggestions on how to apply your scales:

DYNAMICS

• Crescendo
• Diminuendo
• Terraced Dynamics

• pp,p,mp,mf,f,ff

RHYTHMS

• Dotted Rhythms
• Triplets with duplets
• Groupings of 5,6,7

TEMPO

• Accellerando
• Rallentando
• Lento, Andante, Allegretto, Allegro, Presto etc.

TONE CONTROL

• Ponticello
• Tasto

EXTENDED TECHNIQUES

• Pizzicato
• Harmonics
• Slurs

ARTICULATIONS

• Stacatto
• Legato
• Tenuto
• Sforzando
• Accents (place accents on different notes)

RIGHT HAND FINGERING

• im, mi, ia, ai, ma, am, ami, mia, ima, pima, amip, pi, ip etc.

LEFT HAND FINGERING

• Shifts
• Fixed fingers

THE ULTIMATE SCALE BOOK

 

Total Guitar’s techniques team have attempted to cram as much as possible into the 30 pages of this Guitar Scale Ebook you have in your hands. As well as a complete run-down of all the most useful and usable scale shapes in several positions, They’ve included soloing tips, a little music theory, plus some chord sheets and tab exercises to try the scales with. Don’t use these scales in isolation though – the book is primarily intended for reference. The only time a scale becomes worth listening to is when you make a great solo out of it… Enjoy this Free Guitar Scale Ebook.

 

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