Question for someone who plays guitar
 

I'm sure there's gotta be some guitar players here and I have a question.

I've broken my acoustic out of the basement (again) to try to learn to play. (I'm definitely sticking with it this time)

Question: To play rock/blues/folk guitar, ie. Bruce, The Dead, Gov't Mule, Beatles, Allmans etc. and to tinker around with blues improvisation, what are the best scales to learn?
What scales should I focus on?

Thanks.

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

The pentatonic and the Blues scale, in all 5 forms. The blues scale is just the pentatonic with an added b5th.

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

go to ultimate-guitar.com and there is a pretty decent article on beginning blues improvisation.

They used the C-A-G-E-D method, which is the same one I do. There is also a book, the Essentials to Learning Guitar which covers all the music theory you'll ever need.

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

Thanks so much!

Follow up question: Is there a way to determine the key of a song based on its chord progression?

Thanks again!
Ed

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks so much!

Follow up question: Is there a way to determine the key of a song based on its chord progression?

Thanks again!
Ed

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah. you have to study intervals and harmonic structure to do it.

but as sort of an easy way...you can generally go by whatever the first chord is in a given section of a song. the first chord of a section names the key of that section in approximately 80% of pop/rock tunes.

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

I learned to play acoustic guitar by learning songs that i listened to. I would look up the tablature on www.online-guitar.com and listen while playing along. I can now play guitar, even though i hardly know the names of any of the notes im playing.

Tablature is not confusing to read like piano sheet music, it only uses numbers to denote frets of the guitar.

To start off you might wanna learn all of the Open Major Chords -A,C,D,E,F,G (you will be using alot of these in the songs you'll be looking up)

After you've got the open chords learned well, move onto Barred Chords, There are many different forms try to learn the Major and Minor formations.

The key to getting could is relentless practice. Keep playing that riff over and over even when it sounds like crap. That's how it is perfected.

Good luck.

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

Get a good instructor.

Years of practice to get where you want to be I'm sure.

Get a good instructor.

Having a good practice regimen helps.

Get a good instructor.

Learn lots of songs first.

Oh yeah, and get a good instructor.

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

Yes, you can determine the key of a song by looking at chord structures, but it requires some knowledge of music theory which im guessing you lack.

Re: Question for someone who plays guitar
 

The easiest way to tell the key(with rare exception), is to look at the last note of the melody. It will usually be the same. Also, it really doesn't matter.

I played acoustic blues guitar for about 25 years, mostly fingerpicking or slide.

It is important to know scales, but hearing what the song is doing is even more so. Train your ear to pick up sixth, seventh, and ninth notes. Minor tones.. things like that.
Unless you are playing all bar chords, certain chords allow you to pull things off more easily than others. After a while, you will be able to listen to a song and not only know what you need to play, but what the easiest key will be to play it in.