Video lesson: how to learn 4 scales as one

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Cut your practice time down and liven up your guitar solos

In this week's video lesson Guitar Mastery's Claus Levin has an ingenious method to get more from your solos and practice time with just one flexible scale… 

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This exclusive MusicRadar video lesson is brought to you in association with our friends at Guitarmastery.net. Check out their site for more lessons and courses.
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This works like magic!

Instead of practicing multiple scales you can learn just one flexible scale that you can use for any purpose. You can cut learning time in half (at least) move in and out of 4 scales with no hesitation (Because to you it's just one scale) and feel completely confident that you can play over any song with no limitations.

The key insight

The method is very simple: Instead of learning several scales with several scales shapes across the neck, one at a time (This takes months and even years) You learn ALL scales in one position at a time.

Because scales either look very similar or fit into each other like pieces of a puzzle, learning a new scale becomes learning a variation to something you know already instead of a completely new thing. This reduces learning time radically and gives you the freedom to move in and out of multiple scales easily and fast.

Learning a new scale becomes learning a variation of something you know already instead of a completely new thing

We’re merging the pentatonic scale with three different scales on top of each other, but I’m still using the pentatonic as the primary foundation and there’s a good reason for that.

Going from the minor pentatonic scale to another scale can feel difficult – and outside our comfort zones. That is why I call the pentatonic scale your safe zone; we learn it first and it’s a cool tool we can use over chord progressions. So how do we expand out into other scales?

When you look at the charts below you can see how little actually changes between them. If you focus on expanding the minor pentatonic by adding these other notes from the Dorian, Aeolian and Harmonic Minor.

Watch the video above to find out how.

(Image credit: Guitar Mastery)
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