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If you are a student taking beginner guitar lessons and you are starting to get into playing leads, solos, and improvising, then it is very important to understand what guitar scales to practice and when to use them. Before we go playing fast guitar solos, we should examine what kind of chords are being used in our tune to give us an idea on what guitar scales will work the best.

The basic idea of how chords and scales go together is this: If a chord is only made up of a couple notes (such as a power chord) then you will want to play a pentatonic scale over it because this scale only has five notes in it. If a chord is made up of three or more notes (such as a major or minor chord), full major and minor scales will work better because they are made up of seven notes and have more notes in common with the chord. One of the great things about soloing and using scales in rock music is that once you have found your key signature and corresponding scale, you don’t need to worry about changing it if you don’t want to. The one scale will work great for the whole song. When playing over more complex styles of music, such as jazz, one guitar scale won’t work for the entire song. You need to change scales as the chords change.

The most popular type of chord in Rock music is by far the Power Chord. If your in search of guitar chords that are easy and basic, then look no further. Power Chords are the simplest chords for guitar because they only contain two notes, the root and the fifth. When your playing guitar scales over a chord you want the two to have as many notes in common as possible. Since a power chord only has two notes in it, a pentatonic scale (the king of all rock guitar scales) is always a great choice to use. This is because it is made up of only five notes instead of seven like the major and minor scale has. You must make sure that you are playing the scale on the same note as the key.e. if your tune is in the key of A Minor you should start the minor pentatonic scale pattern on the note A.

Should I use a Major or Minor Pentatonic Scale?

To make sure your guitar solo sounds good, stick with the Minor Pentatonic Scale pattern. Most rock songs and chord progressions are in minor key signatures so the minor pentatonic scale will always work great. You can also use the major pentatonic scale, you just have to apply it to the major key that is relative to the minor key.

When should I use full Major and Minor scales?

I am a big fan of Major and Minor scales because they give you the opportunity to really shred and they give you the ability to create very fluid lines. Using them to solo in rock tracks is harder than using minor pentatonic scales though. The most beneficial time to apply these scales is when your tune uses major and minor chords, not power chords. The cool thing about these types of chord progressions is that you can still use a Minor Pentatonic Scale if you want to keep it simple or you can integrate both scales and create some really cool and unique licks.

For a great lesson on how to practice guitar scales, visit the Members Section on the Rock Guitar Power website at http://www.rockguitarpower.com. There is a bunch of backing tracks there, in different keys and styles, to help you practice your lead playing, create your own solos, and work on your improvising skills. Make sure to look at the examples to understand how to work with these parts.

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