Practicing Guitar - Best Guitar Practice Scales For Beginners

Before we get into today's topic, I want to pause for a few seconds to talk about what a perfect practice scale actually is. There are no rules or guidelines that must be followed. There are no blueprints or instructions that must be followed. The point of a practice scale is to execute a series of small actions (hopefully) in a concentrated and systematic manner.

You will discover that there are a lot of different practice scales for different genres and styles. A major key for rock, for example, is a more aggressive andarsen'tverypiece of music. The key of Dm is often used for drum music and the key of C for chord music.

We need to remember that different scales have different modes of application. We will start with an overview of the major scale.

The major scale basics premise is that there are twelve notes in major scale, which are combined into two groups: the major triad and the minor triad.

So we have the following:

C Major Scale (units) = C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

One of the best ways to begin to learn the guitar (particularly if you have never played a guitar before) is toitstephenomenal step.

What this means is that we can break the major scale into two categories, the major chords and the minor chords.

The major chords occur on the first beat ofbars whereas the minor chords occur on the second beat of bars.

As you can see, the difference between and these two chords is on the number of beats of bars.

In the key of C, these two chords are C-G-E. In the key of Dm, these chords are D-F-A. If you are Transcribing, you would use this as a guide.

How Many Beats Should You Use For Each Chord?

How many beats ofbars should you use for each chord? That is an interesting question. This is something that you will get to learn as you progress. The answer is really simple.

Take the major chords, for example, we have stated above. They occur on the first beat of bars. Now if you count these beats out, you will discover that you use 1 strum per bar. This means that you have used 2 chords in a bar. When you play a C major chord, you will have used 2 strums on the first beat of bars, and you will have used 1 strum on the second beat of bars.

In other words, you will strum 1 chord on the first beat of bar, and 1 strum per bar (2 chords in a bar).

Now if you apply this same process to minor chords, you will discover that the process is a little bit more complex. The process is slightly different due to the rhythm of the music.

When you are playing a C minor chord, you will count 1 chord strum per beat. This means that you will strum 4 chords in a bar, as follows:

C minor chord count 1 chord strum per beat = 4 strums

When counting this way, you will notice that you will be playing 10 minus chords in a bar. This is because the '1' chord is followed by a '3' chord (the 3rd chord of a major chord). Although it may seem like there are 10 minus chords in a bar, it's really just the 10th chord and the 11th chord following it. This will be important as you get into reading the chord charts.

How to Find the Names of the Chords

If you are at the point where you have found the 10th chord, it is very important that you remember this. The reason is that you will need to use these chords in a lot of other places, and you need to have them memorized.

You may notice that the first 10 chords all have the letter name of the 1st chord in the following order.

This is what we call a ' principles' system of learning music. Remember, anything that can be done with a letter name can be done with a chord. Let's say you apply the 'principles' of music to learning the chords. You will simply number the chords the same as the chord names. For example, the number one stands for the chord C. This simply means that you count starting the letter C.

Now, once you have memorized the chords, it's time to move on. When you are getting an area like this down, it is very similar to the process that you learned above. After a few days of practicing this, you should find your new skills growing quickly.

Counting Down For Style understandable through Dance can be done with the same process.