Dumb newb question about scales and their significance

Ted

Apologies if this is basic. After trying to grasp(off and on) music techniques and application for the last couple of years, I am still struggling to see  the significance of scales in music.

Learning an playing the various scales on both guitar and piano is quite time consuming and tbh I am struggling to see their significance to making music.

I am sure that this lack of understanding is down to my personal stupidity because the consensus wisdom seems to be that scales are v.important. And many books have been written about them.

I'd be really grateful if someone could give a breakdown of why scales are important and relevant to music, that a 12 year old could understand(which is probably my mental age).

BahHumbug

Scales provide the basic structure for melodies (tunes) and harmony (chords).

if you are playing a tune from tab, for instance, you may have no clue what the complete set of notes is that makes up the whole tune, you may also think that the tune is made up of a seemingly random set of notes.  But the notes in a tune will actually be l8mited to a small set of notes, that are defined by the corresponding scale.
 Chords are also made up according to a set of rules which relate the notes in the chords to a specific scale.

Learning and practicing scales is also good exercise for your fingers and brain.

Winny_Pooh

I think you need to invest some money in lessons. It's far easier to tie these ideas together sat in person.

xscaramanga

Please don't use '*****' like that, it's a horrible word.

Almost all songs are built from scales. Chords are made by using some of the notes in a scale. The chords you can play in a particular key are the chords which contain notes from the scale. The notes you can play in a melody which sound "in key" are the notes from the scale. 

That is a slight oversimplification, but not much.

Maynehead

They make your song sound like a song, rather than a 5 year old trying to recite their dad's jazz album.

Of course, you could make a song sound good purely by ear and trial and error, but eventually when you do make it sound good, you will most likely find that all the notes you've written happen to fall into a particular scale.

Therefore, if you knew about that scale to start with, it might have made things a whole lot easier for you.

Lestratcaster

Scales are basically a bunch of notes that will sound good in a particular key. They will be made up intervals (distance in notes within another) and applicable to guitar, will have different positions and shapes across the fretboard.
Also melodies and chords are built from these as already mentioned above. 

Jalapeno

MODS - title changed

Mark1960

IMHO It really depends on what you want to do and where you want to go with your guitar playing. If you are happy to strum / pick a few chords, play along to your favorite songs, and pick out a few lead breaks, then you do not need to learn scales, although the major and minor pentatonic scale would be handy for soloing and improvisation. If however you want to take things to a greater more detailed level, perhaps writing your own songs then yes scales become rather more important. There are many very competent guitarists playing away quite happily in covers bands, who have no desire or necessity to learn the theory and construction side of music, and have never played a scale in their lives. It's up to you to decide what you want to get out of it, and how much you want to learn.

drofluf

Mark1960 said:

IMHO It really depends on what you want to do and where you want to go with your guitar playing. If you are happy to strum / pick a few chords, play along to your favorite songs, and pick out a few lead breaks, then you do not need to learn scales, although the major and minor pentatonic scale would be handy for soloing and improvisation. If however you want to take things to a greater more detailed level, perhaps writing your own songs then yes scales become rather more important. There are many very competent guitarists playing away quite happily in covers bands, who have no desire or necessity to learn the theory and construction side of music, and have never played a scale in their lives. It's up to you to decide what you want to get out of it, and how much you want to learn.

In the same vein why do people recommend the pentatonic scales rather than the "regular" scales? Is it as simple as having fewer notes to remember?

Ted

Mark1960 said:

IMHO It really depends on what you want to do and where you want to go with your guitar playing. If you are happy to strum / pick a few chords, play along to your favorite songs, and pick out a few lead breaks, then you do not need to learn scales, although the major and minor pentatonic scale would be handy for soloing and improvisation. If however you want to take things to a greater more detailed level, perhaps writing your own songs then yes scales become rather more important. There are many very competent guitarists playing away quite happily in covers bands, who have no desire or necessity to learn the theory and construction side of music, and have never played a scale in their lives. It's up to you to decide what you want to get out of it, and how much you want to learn.

Yes I am interested in composition and understanding the construction of music. Could anyone recommend a good book that introduce the theory of scales?

hollywoodrox

Vaideology or the Guthrie govan book someone mentioned on here recently

Freebird

I'd recommend the following plugin for both educational purposes, and as a songwriting tool:

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/3-Studio-Tools/72-Utility/3933-Scaler

You can lock your midi keyboard to the white keys, and then play chords and scales in any key. (Octave 1 = one finger chords, Octave 2 = scale notes).

I find it helps to hear the interactions between the various chords & scales, when trying to understand the different musical colours that available to us.

It works with VST instruments too.

Ted

Thank you very much for the replies. Unless I am mistaken I am getting the sense that scales can represent a shortcut to making music - that is instead of going through all the possible notes or chords to make a progression, one just needs to focus on those that are in the same scale. Or is this a misunderstanding of what has been said?

Apologies btw for the unintentionally offensive term in the original question title.

Freebird

Ted said:

Thank you very much for the replies. Unless I am mistaken I am getting the sense that scales can represent a shortcut to making music - that is instead of going through all the possible notes or chords to make a progression, one just needs to focus on those that are in the same scale. Or is this a misunderstanding of what has been said?

Apologies btw for the unintentionally offensive term in the original question title.

Yes, the various keys and scales are a subset of the 12-note chromatic scale.

e.g. Key of C Maj chords = C Dm Em F G Am Bdim & the C Maj scale = c d e f g a b c

Mark1960

drofluf said:

Mark1960 said:

IMHO It really depends on what you want to do and where you want to go with your guitar playing. If you are happy to strum / pick a few chords, play along to your favorite songs, and pick out a few lead breaks, then you do not need to learn scales, although the major and minor pentatonic scale would be handy for soloing and improvisation. If however you want to take things to a greater more detailed level, perhaps writing your own songs then yes scales become rather more important. There are many very competent guitarists playing away quite happily in covers bands, who have no desire or necessity to learn the theory and construction side of music, and have never played a scale in their lives. It's up to you to decide what you want to get out of it, and how much you want to learn.

In the same vein why do people recommend the pentatonic scales rather than the "regular" scales? Is it as simple as having fewer notes to remember?

Well - The big advantage of the minor pentatonic scale, is that yes there are less notes, but it can be played over the 3 main chords of a song in the key of A without being incorrect, so it's a good place to start, e.g. Am Pentatonic notes can be played over The A chord, D chord and E chord. Once you have learnt the minor pentatonic, the major is the same positions only 3 frets down so is quite easy to learn the two together.

EricTheWeary

If nothing else then understanding scales and how chords are built off them is essential in communicating with other musicians. 

They also give useful shapes for your fingers and ears to develop.

Although not everything you play will fit neatly under a single scale ( unless you stick to nursery rhymes and the Methodist Hymn book) you can still develop an understanding and language for when things are within or outside of those scales. 

To get away without this you would need to be an exceptional talent. When Steve Lukather says he doesn't understand music theory he doesn't mean he doesn't understand music theory what he means is he doesn't understand it like a good brain surgeon doesn't understand extra tricky brain surgery. It's the basic vocabulary of western music.   

Barney

Scales will give the basic roadmap of what you can use one note after the other ...a bit like reciting the alphabet...they are just a basic form and not music although loads might disagree...

Just like the alphabet you can create words and sentences..make conversation ....it's exactly the same with music..

I think they are important but not the be all and end all ...I wouldn't mind betting that some of our favourite guitarists that we hear today don't know much more than the blues scale but know exactly how to make music from it 

hollywoodrox

I know some people think it sucks  but c a g e d can be useful  using the c a g e d root notes you can build arpeggios, triads , major scales modes , etc  and down the low end it’s not quite as much of a stretch as 3 notes per string . 3 notes per string is useful too . Repeating patterns  lend theirselves to quicker runs . I think the main thing is to learn your fretboard notes on each string so you can find roots and build arpeggios , scales round them . That’s what I’m doing to get my fingerboard knowledge up to scratch . Also randomly jamming to songs even just the vocal line , sliding up and down one string reaching for notes that sound good .

you can still carry on learning songs by tab etc  but start building up your ear/knowledge of the fretboard

UnclePsychosis

Ted said:

Thank you very much for the replies. Unless I am mistaken I am getting the sense that scales can represent a shortcut to making music - that is instead of going through all the possible notes or chords to make a progression, one just needs to focus on those that are in the same scale. Or is this a misunderstanding of what has been said?

Apologies btw for the unintentionally offensive term in the original question title.

At its most basic, if you think of each musical note as a colour, then a scale is a colour palette: a collection of notes (colours) that will work (reasonably) well together. Different colour palettes (scales) can evoke different feelings and different moods. 

That's not to say that you can't throw caution to the wind and throw any old colours (notes) together: there is always a time and a place for that as well.