Why You Should Learn Your Scales

No matter what instrument I an teaching my students - guitar, bass, ukelele, or piano - I always try to teach them how to play at least some scales. When I say try I really mean that I attempt to explain the importance of scales, then cross my fingers and hope they actually do learn them.

The fact is, most students don't understand the reasons they should learn scales, and perhaps you are one of them. In this post I'm going to list a number of reasons why it's important to know your scales. Without further ado...

Top 8 reasons to learn scales (off the top of my head)...

1) They're good for finger warm-ups at the start of practice.
(Related post: Warm Up With Scales)
Every musician needs a bit of a warm up, something to get the fingers awake and moving, and to get the blood flowing. Scales are perfect for this - they generally require all of the fingers to be used, and rarely require any serious stretch or force to play.

2) They're important for learning (or even writing) solos and melodies.
(Related post: Solos are Based on Scales)
That amazing guitar solo you just heard in your favourite song? Yeah, I can pretty much guarantee that it's based on a scale. If you know the scales, you can learn how these solos are built (and maybe even write one yourself). The same applies for the melodies to most songs.

3) They make it easier to improvise when playing.
(Related post: "Improvise Using Scales")
If you know your scales, you will have a much easier time improvising. Most of the stuff that will sound good while you're playing will be based on one (or more) scale(s).

4) They make it easier to understand how to tune your instrument.
(Related post: Tuning the Guitar, Step 2: Tuning Without a Tuner)
Learning scales often leads to knowing what the different note names are for your fretboard. Knowing this can occasionally save you some hassles while tuning.

5) They are useful in understanding how to build chords.
(Related posts: Chords are Based on Scales, Each Scale Contains Multiple Chords)
Virtually all chords are based on scales. Learn the scales, understand the chords.

6) They make songwriting much easier.
Guess what? Basically every song you've ever liked is based on a scale! So if you're into writing songs, chances are you want to write something you like, which means whatever you end up writing is going to be based on a scale. Can you write songs without knowing scales? Absolutely. Is it easier than just learning the scales? No way! Learn those scales, and then maybe you'll become the next great songwriter.

7) They make learning songs by ear much easier to do.
As I said, songs are typically based on scales. Know the scales and you can begin to learn songs by ear more easily.

8) They make your fingers smarter.
You will learn songs more easily because, as I mentioned above, songs are often based on scales, which means a lot of parts to songs use the same fingering as a scale. If you know your scales, you learn songs faster. Sweet deal! This tends to make sight reading easier as well.

Here are a few sample scales.

Some samples scales

C scale pattern form III (guitar): Here is a C scale pattern for guitar. It is one of the easier ones to learn. the fingering follows the frets, so use your first finger for fret 1, finger 2 for fret 2, and finger 3 for fret 3.

C scale (piano, various other instruments): The first scale most pianists learn. As good a place to start as any!

If you play ukelele, bass, or guitar, and you're looking to get started on scales, check out my post on warming up with scales here.

The moral of the story is: Learn your scales!