Jazz Guitarist, Publisher and Music Educator
Jazz Guitar Scales
Scales are one of the most important and sought after musical devices for guitarists of all levels, backgrounds and musical tastes. They provide theoretical knowledge about how notes are arranged in a musical contest, teach us the different positions on the guitar and open our hands, eyes and ears to the geometrical nature of the instrument.
For those of us who are learning scales in order to better our abilities as improvisers, it is important to keep in mind that while scales are a great way to learn the neck of the guitar, get different sounds in our ears and train our fingers to do what we need them to do, their knowledge alone will not make one a great improviser. A thorough knowledge of the vocabulary (licks, patterns and melodies) of the genre you are interested in, coupled with a good knowledge of triads, jazz guitar scales and arpeggios, is the best way to ensure that you are ready to rip a great solo the next time you step on stage.
Click on any scale or mode below to learn more about how each mode is built, how to apply these concepts to a musical situation and to get fingering charts for 1 and 2 octave modes, along with three fingering variations for each.
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Major Modes
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Melodic Minor Modes
- Melodic Minor
- Dorian b2 Mode
- Lydian Augmented
- Lydian Dominant
- Mixolydian b6
- Locrian Natural 9
- Altered
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Harmonic Minor Modes
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Harmonic Major Modes
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Blues Scales
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Pentatonic Scales
- Major Pentatonic Scales
- Minor Pentatonic Scales
- Mixolydian Pentatonic Scales
- Dorian Pentatonic Scales
- Minor Major 7 Pentatonic Scales
- b9 Pentatonic Scales
- b13 Pentatonic Scales
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Symmetrical Scales
- Augmented Scales
- Whole Tone Scales
- Half-Whole Diminished Scale
- Whole-Half Diminished Scale
- Tri-Tone Scale
- Chromatic Scales
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Bebop Scales
4 Responses to "Jazz Guitar Scales"
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This is a recommendation that you include in your scale eBook some discussion about scale fingering.
Note that the use of the 3-note/string scales are good for fast hammer-on/pull-off execution and provide the shape migration information that is needed to bridge the static scale shapes.
Hey Ron,
Thanks for the suggestion, the book isn’t meant to tackle guitar scale shapes, that’s a lot of information, it’s more to outline the five scale techniques as a means of practicing scales.
Because of the variety of scale fingerings for guitar, I try and cover as many different ones as possible in different articles, but it’s hard to get to all of them as much as I might want.
Anyway, thanks for checking out the site and for the suggestion.
Did not mean to suggest that you should write a treatise.
Was trying to suggest that you wax philosophically and generally as to the value of your offering.
I have found that the most important and often missing ingredient in most guitar books, sites, etc, is that the guitar learner (note I did not say student) is not told the WHY of it all.
The most important thing that a player should know while practicing is what he might be thinking and what the important values are.
If she is new to these issues, she should not have to discover the value of everything for herself.
Ron: I was just kinda thinking out loud in my response. It’s a good suggestion, valid point about the why. I’ll see if I can’t squeeze something like that into the next edition of the book, and it would make a good topic for an article, so I’ll put it on my list and hopefully get around to it sooner than later. Cheers