Tips for Practicing Scales on Guitar

I'm going to show you a secret for learning, hearing, and playing scales on the guitar. It's a three-step method.

Step one: play everything in one position.

Step two: play each scale up and down from root to fifth and root to octave.

Step three: compare everything to the major scale and alter tones one at a time so we can hear our new scales relative to the basic major scale.

Let's put this into practice. Start with C major scale, root to fifth, root to octave.

Now make an alteration: take the seventh scale degree (B) and move it down a half step to B flat. It doesn't change the first five notes, but it changes the top of the scale. Can you hear the difference?

Now alter one more tone: take the fourth scale degree and move it up a half step to F#. Now I have the Lydian Dominant scale, which can sound a little outside if you haven't heard it before. But you can think of it as just lowering the seventh and raising the fourth.