Good guitar instruction on scale fingerings is important for soloing so you can move around the fretboard easily and be able to play like Zakk Wylde, Randy Rhoads, Joe Satriani and other guitar heroes. Beginner guitar players may not understand this, but as they get intermediate or advanced, they realize how extremely important and necessary it is to have a command of scale fingerings.
Guitar students often find themselves wanting to play more and do more with their instrument. They want to play like their favorite guitar players. They want to be able to do the runs and licks and style of soloing that these players are doing. But they can not do so because they do not have a solid grasp of their scale fingerings. As a matter of fact, most guitar players have a really poor knowledge of these and their understanding is so limited that it becomes a real detriment to their playing. Even many guitar players who have a few fingerings down very well and can play them very fast, soon find that they really are missing a great deal of understanding and repertoire of fingerings that leaves them seeking to learn the guitar fretboard more than they ever thought necessary.
They pursue greater fingering knowledge with chords and scales, applying them with music theory, soloing and improvisation and more with the guitar. Fretboard road maps that try to give instant fretboard mastery with fingerings sound great but they are not the key to learning fingerings in a manner that you will be able to utilize in any significant way.
To get a grip on your scale fingerings you must first be able to read your notes on the fretboard, because you have to have a positional point or reference point to begin with. Learning your notes on your strings will give you the first step for starting your fingerings, from there you will not have to worry as much about your skill with note names just in order to get going with your fingerings.
Next you want to take a scale fingering and learn it from one reference point very well. The system or method that you will use and learn will determine how well and how fast you will be able to obtain a command of the fretboard with your scales.
Zakk Wylde for example obviously knows his scale fingerings very well. It doesn’t matter what style of music you are interested in, you need to know your fingerings as well as Zakk Wylde. How about Joe Satriani, you may say well he is so far beyond what I can dream of that it does not matter.
But again what does he know that you don’t? He knows his scale fingerings very well. And you want to be able to do that too, but not after wasting years and years of fragmented study to learn them the best way possible. You can learn your fretboard faster and more thoroughly than you ever thought possible if you obtain the proper teaching method.
By: Greg Zims
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