How Can You Learn To Use Scales Creatively While Soloing?

By Luca Turilli

Scales are the building blocks of your guitar solos. As you learn the essential scales for playing in the neoclassical style and practice playing them, you need to be doing more than simply 'learning the notes' of these scales. It is very important to practice scales in other ways rather than only ascending and descending through them at fast speeds. This is what will make you a truly creative guitarist.

There are dozens of ideas that can be applied to using scales creatively. Today I will show you several ways of doing this.

Instead of playing the notes of the scale up and down, you should also practice playing them in shorter groups of repeated patterns (sequences). Doing this will make the scales you are playing sound less like exercises and more like musical phrases. This is the most common way of using scales in guitar solos and in fact there are MANY variations that can be created from this single concept.

Here is one example of a scale sequence:

As you can see in the diagram above, the notes of the scale aren't being played in order, but are instead played in repeating groupings of 4 notes. (play the notes in the tab and you will be able to hear the repeating pattern yourself). This example uses the A harmonic minor scale.

After you learn a sequencing pattern, start applying it to ALL other scales that you know. This will help you to get more ideas from only a single sequence and will enable you to use it in more musical situations.

Another way to become creative with using scales in your guitar playing is by combining several scales within the same solo. You may already know how to play a basic Major scale and a minor scale. However, there are many more scales which are very closely related to both Major and minor (that have a more exotic sound). When you learn what they are and begin to combine them in your guitar solos at appropriate moments, your music will begin to sound more expressive and creative!

Applying the ideas discussed in this lesson will help you a lot with moving away from being 'just a guitar player' and move towards becoming a true musician!

I teach guitar players just like you all of the essential scales and guitar techniques used in neoclassical guitar playing. You too can become the ultimate neoclassical guitar maestro! Come to my Neoclassical Revelation guitar course today and I will show you how!