Improve Your Guitar Speed With Scales Using Powerful & Innovative Odd Rhythm Sequence Practice
You aren’t limited to practicing scales on guitar in the same, boring way every time (…by playing them up and down over and over). The more creatively you practice guitar scales, the more fun it becomes and the better the results you get.
There exist tons of interesting and effective ideas to use in your guitar practice that are just waiting to be discovered. When you use more creative approaches, you start to think at a different level than most guitarists. This leaves the door open for you to take your guitar playing to a level most people don’t even know exists!
Start programming your mind to think more creatively while playing guitar scales with more speed than ever by using the cool practice ideas below:
Practice Playing Guitar Scales With Speed & Creativity With Groups Of 5 & 7
Playing guitar scales with notes in sequences of 5 or 7 is much less common than other even groupings of 4 or 3. It feels more intense and engaging because your mind has to work to process groups of notes into uneven pairs of 2’s and 3’s.
For example: Notes in a group of 7 could be 2+2+3 or 3+2+2 and so on.
For this reason, practicing scales in these types of sequences improves your ability to process what your hands are doing more precisely. This takes your guitar technique to a much higher level than what most guitarists experience by using more conventional approaches.
This tab shows a D minor scale played in a 5-note sequence:
This tab shows a D minor scale played in groupings of 7 notes:
Practice Idea 1: Practice guitar scales in both 5-note sequences
Instead of playing each note once until the scale is through, use 5-note sequences while practicing. This provides more challenge, helping you get better benefits for your technique while practicing. It also makes playing guitar scales in the normal way feel easier by comparison.
Here is an example of playing a scale in 5-note sequences:
Practice Idea 2: Practice guitar scales in both 5 AND 7-note sequences
It’s easy to get used to the general feeling of these odd note groupings by practicing them starting from the same note (instead of moving through the whole scale). Alternate between groupings of 5 and 7 notes to get used to the patterns quickly:
Practice the tab above by repeat it several times in a row, then adding a brief rest after a few repetitions. To master this style of sequencing even faster, articulate the first note of each group using a heavy pick stroke.
For example: Note 1 of 5, pick with power. Then note 1 of 7, pick with power.
When this becomes easy, improve your ability to pick with precision and speed by using heavier articulation to divide each grouping of 5 or 7 by 2’s and 3’s.
For example: Articulate notes 1 and 3 in the 5-note grouping (2+3) and 1, 3, 5 in the 7-note grouping (2+2+3).
Practice Idea 3: Add tons of speed to your guitar scales with ease
A great way to master playing with these kinds of sequences is to:
- Quickly play all 5 or 7 notes at the start of a scale (as fast as you can)
- Rest for a second
- Repeat
For example:
Make this practice even more focused by practicing only 2 or 3 notes of the pattern at a time. Then add them together to play the entire scale fragment.
Once this becomes comfortable, remove the rest at the end and play the entire group of notes continuously for 15-30 seconds. Then either add more notes or start from a different note in the scale.
This kind of practice is very effective for helping you play guitar scales with speed and accuracy in no time.
Practice Idea 4: Get greater command of the fretboard by combining different scales together
Practicing modes within the same parent scale helps you find your way along the fretboard with ease for smoother soloing.
Practice the modes of the same parent scale that are within 2 frets of the scale you are working on using the other ideas in this article, like so:
Note: If you aren’t familiar with the concept of modes, find a great guitar teacher to take lessons from who will explain this.
Practice Idea 5: Learn how to use your scales more creatively
Don’t simply practice guitar scales in isolation from everything else. Set aside time to improvise using the 5 and 7-note grouping idea in this article. In other words: focus on playing phrases that use only 5 or 7 notes or use these ideas together with your normal soloing approach.
This integrates the ideas into your guitar playing so you are able to use them in a musically expressive and creative way.
Learning more ways to use your technical skills to play music makes you a better guitar player. Learn how to become more expressive with scales, arpeggios and techniques while soloing using these guitar phrasing articles and resources.