Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Lead Guitar Lessons: Mastering the Major Scales

By Jonah Schriever


With the help of the right lead guitar lessons, people that love to play the lead guitar can move from being novices to being more accomplished players. The first thing that they will need to learn is how to play the pentatonic scale which consists of 5 separate notes. This scale is very easy to learn as well as to remember and every guitarist knows how to use it. It is also important to master the major scale which has everything that the pentatonic scale has plus two different notes as well.

The best way of learning the major scale is by starting off with the C major scale, which refers to each white note on a piano or a keyboard. Before working on the major scale it will also be a good idea to understand the meaning of an octave. This is really a note in which the frequency is double that of another note. Though each note is referred by one name, the octave will be down by half of the frequency of the note preceding it and it also has a low pitch.

The fretboard on your guitar has divisions of various octaves that in turn must be divided into different steps. When you learn Western music you will be taught scales that consist of semitones (each has 12 different steps.) a single fret equals a single semitone but two frets will be equal to a single whole tone. Most guitarists tend to play the major scales the most.

The next part of your lead guitar lessons should involve learning the C major scale on your guitar. In order to play the scales in the proper manner, you should start with the sixth string being an open note. From here you can progress higher in pitch but be sure to pick with the help of both up strokes as well as down strokes. It does in fact pay to begin with a down stroke on the open E string and then follow that with an up stroke on the F string and down on the G and continue in this vein.

If you wish to play the major scale in the correct way, start playing the open E string and move to the G note on the third fret of your guitars first string and then reverse the playing. Such form of practice will help ensure that you benefit from using your lead guitar lessons to play the major scale flawlessly.

These steps form the basics of learning how to play your lead guitar the proper way. Of course, there is a lot more that you will need to learn.

It also helps if you are able to learn about all of the notes that are same or which are an octave. Next, learn to distinguish whether the octave is up or down and then work out a pattern and learn as many of them as you can.

Mastering the major scales is the first step to becoming an accomplished lead guitar player. The above mentioned tips can go a long way in helping you achieve success as a lead guitarist.




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