The Scales of Progress

One of the most important technical aspects of learning to play the guitar is practicing scales. Having said that, I can envision many of the readers of this blog forming that "I smell excrement" look on their faces, wondering if they want to read on at all. (I DON'T LIKE that teacher! He makes me plays scales!.... harumph!)

We guitarists see other people playing grand things, or hear grand music in our heads and want to cut right to the chase, and practice those grand things directly. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line after all, right? This can seem to make scales look trivial, even a waste of time. Over and over I've heard from students (and thought myself on many occasions) that playing scales is boring... like, uh... TOTALLY.

But the reality is that practicing scales will enable you to really be able to play those grand pieces that you want to play. They lay the groundwork that give you the chops. Moreover, practicing the tricky passages that arise in any piece of music without laying this groundwork inevitably leads to the frustration that comes from playing something over and over maybe hundreds of times, and never being able to consistently pull it off.

So here is a problem I face as a guitar teacher: I have to ask myself what is it about playing scales that turns students off, and what can I do about it. It's my job after all to help students learn, help them keep the interest they brought to the lessons in the first place, and hold their attention all the while.

So where do I start? First of all, I have to grant that practicing scales can very frustrating. Many students tend to take a haphazard approach to scales, feeling almost as if it's something that they have to do because they've been told how necessary it is; otherwise they'll feel guilty. So they spend a few minutes running through them mindlessly, with or without the metronome, hear some good passages, some mistakes, wrap it up and tell themselves they'll come back tomorrow and it'll be better. On to that piece I really want to learn! But when tomorrow comes they do the same thing, never really grasping what it is they can accomplish with scales.

The Exciting Truth About Scales: Empowerment!
That's right, playing scales empowers you! Plain and simple. A huge cause of the frustration of scale playing is that they expose every
flaw in your technique. Who wants their flaws exposed? How do you deal with the frustration of exposed flaws? There's only one way — with honestly. If playing scales exposes flaws, let's face those flaws honestly and dissect them. 100% of the flaws that are exposed here have one root: somewhere there is tension. Tension in the fingers, the hands, the wrist, the elbow, even shoulders or back.

Monitor Thyself
So what can you do to ease this tension? Make an honest assessment of yourself by monitoring every aspect of your technique. There is no reason fingers, hands, or wrists should feel any differently when they are positioned on the guitar, then they did when they were hanging loosely at your sides. Let them hang, and feel it. THEN, bring them up to the guitar again and allow that same feeling of ease.

When playing your scales, honestly and with constancy, monitor yourself for tension. You'll find it somewhere. Deal with it and relax it. Are your fingers really as relaxed as they can be? Is there tension in the back of your hand? Your wrist? Your Elbow? Only you can find it and relax it. Find that part of your brain that will let it go and feel the effortlessness. If I ask you to freely wiggle your fingers away from the guitar, you can do it easily. That is how it should feel when you're fingering the fretboard. Think of the great players you've watched play the guitar. You see a sense of ease even in the most difficult of passages. That's what makes them great players. How do they do it? It sounds like an oxymoron, but it's because they have worked to honestly assess the tension, let it go, and felt the ease. And they did this work S-L-O-W-L-Y. So slowly that they can't possibly make a mistake.

Try it. (Again) S-L-O-W-L-Y. Suddenly, you're overcome with a true lightness of touch that you'd never had before, and feel the real ease that truly empowers you with confidence, ability and certainty. Playing scales in this way enables you to learn what it really feels like to play the guitar well (and easily!).

NOW, armed with that feeling, that sense of tension-free ease, go off and enjoy playing grand pieces! Learn those pieces equipped with the ability and experience that make it easy to play the guitar well, difficult to play it poorly!

(As always, I invite you to write me with any questions or comments concerning this blog. Click here.)