Practicing Guitar Scales
Exercises To Improve Rhythm and Speed

Practicing guitar scales is sometimes overlooked or put off by inexperienced players--they are in a hurry to play SONGS! Of course this is not YOU or you would not be here, right? Good--let's get started!

I have designed this set of exercises to do two things: improve your sense of rhythm and increase the speed of your scale playing.

If you have trouble learning fast licks and solos, practice these exercises and then learn your favorite licks by SLOWING THEM DOWN! The program that I use to teach my students is called "RiffMaster Pro". To learn more about this program, Click Here!

HINTS:

**Before you begin to play the exercises, you might want to set your metronome at 60 and practice clapping each rhythm--2 notes per beat, 3 notes per beat, and 4 notes per beat.

If you don't have a metronome, you need to get one as soon as possible.

**If 60 seems very slow for the eighth notes, leave it there until you try the other two rhythms. The 16th notes might be faster than you think. If 16th notes are easy, go ahead and increase the speed a little at a time.

**Here is how to play it: Play the scale (I used "pentatonic minor" for the example, but you can choose any scale that you want to practice) ONCE through using eighth notes. Then WITHOUT STOPPING, go to triplets. You will have to play the triplet part THREE TIMES to get the metronome click back on the first note. Then go WITHOUT STOPPING to 16th notes and play FOUR TIMES.

**Be patient, especially when playing the triplet portion! Because the accents keep changing, it may get confusing. Stay with it, though and you will be AMAZED at the results as reflected in your solo playing.

Here is the exercise:Pentatonic Minor Scale (in G)

Want to totally MASTER your scales?

Guitar Scale Mastery

In the next lesson you will find exercises to help you to play repeated notes (as in "splatter picking"). Click on this link to proceed:

"Fast Alternate Picking Exercises"

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