What are 10 scales a guitarist must know?

Actually I would recommend 6 essential scales for any guitarist!

1. Pentatonic Scale
2. Blues Scale
3. Minor Scale
4. Major Scale
5. Dorian Mode
6. Mixolydian Mode

Scale 1: The Minor Pentatonic Scale

A pentatonic scale is a scale that has 5 notes per octave. The minor pentatonic scale is
typically the first
irst scale guitarists learn to solo with and is very commonly used to
form solos in rock, blues, and other popular styles.

The two main positions this scale is played in are:

The scale is quick to learn and easy to learn to improvise and phrase with. Once you
have mastered the basics of using the scale over a minor chord progression, there are
also some more advanced uses based on playing different positions of the scale over a
minor chord or moving the scale up or down a fret to get a “playing outside” sort of
sound. I might devote a lesson to these more advanced uses in the future.

If you would like to practice this scale over a backing track

track you can use the blues
backing tracks

or the backing tracks

racks designed for the Aeolian mode or the Dorian mode

.
Scale 2: The Blues Scale

Once you learn the minor pentatonic scale, it should be relatively easy to learn the
blues scale as it is essentially the same with one additional note (a flattened 5th).

This scale in its two most common positions are as follows:

As the name suggests, the scale is used heavily in blues but is also used in rock and
jazz-based
based styles a lot too. Soloing over the blues using this scale is relatively easy to
get the basics of, but you could spend a lifetime honing the subtle nua
nuances of the
style, such as the feel of the bends, the vibratos and the timing of your phrases.

You can practice this scale over our blues backing tracks

Scale
le 3: The Natural Minor Scale or the Aeolian Mode

The natural minor scale is very commonly used in rock and popular styles. As well as
being used to form solos, the chords formed from the natural minor scale would be
the most commonly used chords in popular
popula chord progressions.

The two main positions for the scale on the guitar are:

You can read more about this scale in our article on the natural minor scale

and you can practice this scale over backing tracks

t on our backing tracks designed for
this scale

.
Scale 4: The Major Scale

The major scale is heavily used in a number of ways. The chords formed from tthe
major scale are commonly used to form chord progressions, and there is also a lot of
theory on how to form harmonies with this scale.

Additionally, this scale is used to form modes which are also commonly used. The
natural minor scale mentioned above, as as well as the Dorian mode and the Mixolydian
mode below, are all modes of the major scale. You can read more about forming
modes from this scale in our article on the modes of the major scale

The two main positions for the scale are:

The major scale can be used to form solos over chord progressions that are based on
the chords formed from the major scale. The scale is also commonly used to solo
over major 7th and major 6th chords in jazz-based
jazz based styles where the scales used may
be changing over different chords. You can read more about this scale in ou
our major
scale

article.

To practice your improvisation with this scale over backing tracks, you can use our
major scale backing tracks

.
Scale 5: The Dorian Mode

While the natural minor scale is most commonly used in rock and other popular
styles to form solos over minor chord progressions, the Dorian mode is more
commonly usedsed to play over minor chords in jazz and fusion-based
fusion based styles.

The main positions for the Dorian mode on the guitar are:

If you would like to practice this scale over a backing track you can use the backing
tracks designed for the Dorian mode

or alternatively, as the Dorian mode is the bluesiest sounding mode of the major
scale, it will also work over many of our blues backing tracks

Scale 6: The Mixolydian Mode

The Mixolydian mode is the 5th mode of the major scale and is commonly used to
improvise over dominant chords in jazz and fusion-based
fusion styles.

The two most common positions for the Mixolydian mode are:

You can practice your Mixolydian soloing and improvisation over our Mixolydian
backing tracks

You might also like to take a look at our guitar scales chart for a chart of the main
positions of these 6 scales. 640 views Submission accepted by Martin Turner

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