This Is How You Should Practice Every Scale Exercise

Most great Guitar Players mix a lot of different techniques when they are playing, and if that is the end goal then the scale exercises you do should also contain that element!

In this lesson I am going to go over some ways to take simple exercises and use them to combine legato, alternate picking and sweeping or economy picking.

Technique and Scale Exercises are for sound
For me it is in the end much more about having techniques so that I can play the music that I want to play and get it to sound right and having a flexible technique in terms of legato and picking is very useful for this.

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[JensLarsen]

Do you have exercises that combine different techniques? Good ones to share?

[chusssMusic]

Great lesson as usual. I always mix different techniques by instinct but never actually sat down to decide or understand exactly what I was doing. This is an eye opener. Thanks for this lesson Jens.

[jazzman]

Thanks Jens, a very clear explanation of the techniques, how they work, how to implement and where we can use them. Very helpful!

[jumemowery]

Jens, I love your lessons and your philosophy.

[steellemonstudios]

Great lesson, Jens! The goal is to create music with this stuff and there’s no award for picking every note! Ha, so I agree that it does help to practice these in a variety of ways like you’ve shown, as each of these is useful in their own way. I also like using slides where you have hammer ons and pulloffs. I picked that up from Tom Kolb.

[fredericoferreira]

thank you for another amazing lesson...

[DESIENASHOES]

fantastic, these exercises remember my shred legato times :- ) satriani/Gambale and Garsed

[Shuzies]

Hi Jens...hope all is well with you and yours

[inkspecialist]

I immediately got better at scales after seeing this video.

[MsDavo]

Excellent lesson as always new ideas on scales i really love your exercises-let us think on smth basic yet inportant suppos you play major scale with 4th then you will find yourself you can do ot in two ways economy picking and alternate picking funny enough rconomy picking works really great here bec it incorporates 2 string sweeps-which means if you are good at sweeping you gonna nail this - thats why malmsteen maid this choice but i wonder if alternate picking can work also well here-🤔

[JariSatta]

Yahtzee!
I sometimes do 5min troubleshooting by not using thumb support from behind the neck, this exposes my left hand weaknesses, then I go back to normal playing w/special focus.

[Sunnatism]

Good day mr. Larsen. Really like your approach for jazz playing. The question is, which guitar are you using at this video?

[andreluissilvakamla]

thanks for this video, Jens, I have very difficult in scales, but, I have some books, like:the best of Joe pass, bebop for jazz guitar by Les Wise and I use this licks, in my standards, in your opinion, am I right?

[lucianocittadini]

I would not mind seeing a lesson on the left hand technique. Particularly, while practicing scales, when it comes to rolling the finger from the upper to the lower string. Is it something that we should try to avoid as much as possible?

[catholicmetalhead]

key to learning difficult licks is to mix techniques while practicing and not simply mastering or simply focusing and expecting that technique to make all others easier, practice the techniques you need not what you think you need but don't really.

[Marunius]

This might be a stupid/unrelated question but what do you clean your guitar with? It's always so shiny!

[DSpeir-pitm]

I love playing legato, I picked it up from watching little known guitarist like Glenn Campbell, Roy Clark, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins and Jimmy page . I don't think anyone's ever heard of these guys though 🙄