First: Why??
There are millions of scales out there and each one has it’s own mood, tricks etc. So you will never run out of new licks to discover that is for sure. BUT… sometimes it may be daunting. The fact that there is sooooo much to learn may be not so exciting always. And trust me, when your creative juices are flowing like a mad river, learning a scale may not be the first thing you want to do.
Now: What???
There are many people who are just learning the scales, just starting out. But they are talented nonetheless and want to express or experiment right away. That’s fine. So here’s the thing.
Choose any 5-6 notes you want from all those notes in a scale possible. Let’s say, a b c c# d#. That’s it. It may sound weird, it may not. The scale may be there, may be has a name. But just go with it. Try to play next 2-3 minutes restricting yourself to the notes you have chosen. Do not like it? Choose another random 5-6 notes and play. With/without a backing track. You will start discovering new licks even before learning the scales and stuff. You can learn the scales later when you are in the mood.
The next step??
Whatever I said earlier is inspired by Indian Classical Music. It has scales in it made of every possible combination of notes out there. Now here’s the exciting part. There are scales in it which has a group notes while going up, but different group of notes while going down. (This concept maybe elsewhere too, I am not aware of.) Let’s say: the scale is C(lower) D E F G A B C(higher) A# A G F E D C(lower). Try to play it, try to create patterns, licks etc. It’s a whole new monster. And it’s not fixed. Change notes as you like.
I hope this is helpful for those who are absolute beginners and lazy like me in terms of learning scales but still want to be able to explore.
(….and I hope it’s easy to understand).
There are millions of scales out there and each one has it’s own mood, tricks etc. So you will never run out of new licks to discover that is for sure. BUT… sometimes it may be daunting. The fact that there is sooooo much to learn may be not so exciting always. And trust me, when your creative juices are flowing like a mad river, learning a scale may not be the first thing you want to do.
Now: What???
There are many people who are just learning the scales, just starting out. But they are talented nonetheless and want to express or experiment right away. That’s fine. So here’s the thing.
Choose any 5-6 notes you want from all those notes in a scale possible. Let’s say, a b c c# d#. That’s it. It may sound weird, it may not. The scale may be there, may be has a name. But just go with it. Try to play next 2-3 minutes restricting yourself to the notes you have chosen. Do not like it? Choose another random 5-6 notes and play. With/without a backing track. You will start discovering new licks even before learning the scales and stuff. You can learn the scales later when you are in the mood.
The next step??
Whatever I said earlier is inspired by Indian Classical Music. It has scales in it made of every possible combination of notes out there. Now here’s the exciting part. There are scales in it which has a group notes while going up, but different group of notes while going down. (This concept maybe elsewhere too, I am not aware of.) Let’s say: the scale is C(lower) D E F G A B C(higher) A# A G F E D C(lower). Try to play it, try to create patterns, licks etc. It’s a whole new monster. And it’s not fixed. Change notes as you like.
I hope this is helpful for those who are absolute beginners and lazy like me in terms of learning scales but still want to be able to explore.
(….and I hope it’s easy to understand).