What is up with these guitar scales?
Hey I am new to guitar and this might be a stupid question but I am confused by these scales. I don’t understand what they are, I am learning the blues and pentatonic scales. How would you read these on a piece of music? I understand that its a scale but are they notes, and what do they mean in context to playing with certain chords?
That’s such a great question!
Scales can be useful for the following reasons:
1) They help your "ear" to hear the relationships between notes and chords.
2) They help you develop your motor skills and technique on guitar.
3) They help you "map" out your fretboard.
What are they? Besides a group of notes (as already very well pointed out in other answers), they are RELATED to certain chords. The chords and the scale are like 2 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that fit together. You could think of chords as being Vertical sound and scales as being Horizontal sound.
As a beginner, they are most useful to you to get your fingers moving and your ear more attuned to music.
As you advance, scales become a basic framework to create your own music from. Good luck and keep playing 
Filed under: blues guitar scales
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A scale is a group of notes. The pentatonic scale has five notes Penta meaning five. These five notes are repeated up and down the neck (everywhere). A major scale has 7 notes. In context to chords a major chord is made up of the 1,3,5,7 scale degree. If you have a C major scale you have C,D,E,F,G,A,B so the Cmaj7 chord is made up of C,E,G,B . Hope this helps.
References :
Hey there!
Don’t worry about asking questions like these. We all had to begin at your spot. Firstly the Pentatonic scale means that there are five notes in the scale. Penta = five, as mentioned above. The Blues scale is a pentatonic minor scale with a b5 in it. So take a pentatonic minor scale and add in a tritone along with the normal 5 and you have a blues scale. Example: A blues scale in A is A, C, D, D#, E, F, G.
References :
That’s such a great question!
Scales can be useful for the following reasons:
1) They help your "ear" to hear the relationships between notes and chords.
2) They help you develop your motor skills and technique on guitar.
3) They help you "map" out your fretboard.
What are they? Besides a group of notes (as already very well pointed out in other answers), they are RELATED to certain chords. The chords and the scale are like 2 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that fit together. You could think of chords as being Vertical sound and scales as being Horizontal sound.
As a beginner, they are most useful to you to get your fingers moving and your ear more attuned to music.
As you advance, scales become a basic framework to create your own music from. Good luck and keep playing
References :
http://www.free-guitar-lessons-online.com/basic-scales.html