How do I practice this!!

[Maisie Watson]

Hi guys
I’m a beginner at guitar and I’m working on the CAGED system. I’m currently practicing the scales and such to these, and all’s ive done so far is played th ascending and descending. I know the shapes pretty well and am comfortable with them, but now I don’t know what to do to take it to the next level!!
So does anyone have any tips on how to practice scales?? E.g, do I come up with phrases and repeat them? Can I play them as a fill and not just a solo?? I’m so stuck as to how to apply this concept to more than just running them up and down the fretboard!!
Maisie

 

[idssdi]

The cool thing about caged is that it allows you to do the same scale on different positions. Why is this cool? If you know all of them well you are able to switch between them in your solo. Why do you want to switch between them? Each position of a scale usually makes you come up with different licks(for me anyway) so it is a good way to not bore your audience by doing the same thing over and over again.
A good way to practice scales at first is just playing it up and down until you know it well. When you have done this you can start looking at arpeggios that are ‘hidden’ in the scale. When you know those you can combine the notes from the scale with the arpeggios to come up with some melodies and phrases when you improvise over a backingtrack for example.
Yes you can do some small little fills with scales people like John Mayer and Jimmi Hendrix do this all the time.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

YES! You can most definitely use them as fills and even riffs. A good way I like to get more out of each scale is to practice sequence patterns with them. And REALLY practice the tidbits papa gives us in the lessons like the double stops, skipping notes and sliding up to a note.
I would encourage you to slow the backing tracks down or even find other ones online in that key and begin jamming. Create your own licks and try writing a small solo, or even write a chord progression out of the key your working in and try to write a little riff with it.

 

[Maisie Watson]

I’ll give jamming a shot! I’ve done this before but often find myself not knowing what to do!! I’ll go over all the little nicnaks Papa Gates mentions and see if it helps! Thanks Jak!!

 

[Maisie Watson]

Ids! Thank you! I never thought of finding arpeggios in the scale, it would be really cool to try and create melodies! Thank you!

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Take some time to master the caged system. Even if you feel confident with it. There are many ways to take it forward. You can learn sweeps this way as you can figure out the arpeggios easily with the caged system. It also helps learning scales faster as you figure out pretty quickly where you are playing the same notes you did further up the fretboard. So you figure out comfortable positions to play certain licks.. etc. It’s probably one of the biggest lessons on the site. It’s the trick that a LOT of good guitarists that I’ve talked to have no idea it even exists. Like, they know it but didn’t know the system actually existed. lol. Whoever invented the theory is a genius.