Practice Major Scales like this and You will get more out of it!

You may think that this is a guitar technique video, but there is more to scale practice than moving your fingers. Most musicians study major scales as part of their practice routine. In this video I want to talk about what you want to learn, what you need it for and how you use it to build on when making music. Hopefully you can recognize and maybe re-shape your practice and connect things more.

For a lot of you this may be a big check list that you can cross a lot of stuff off on, but it will also give you some new ideas on where to go and connect the things you already know. I may give you the advice to learn a bit of theory.

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List of Content:

0:00 Intro - What you need to know, what is going to make you play better
0:18 It's more than moving your fingers
0:57 Step 1 - Learn the scale on your instrument
1:07 Learn the notes of the scale
1:31 Combine The theory and the scale practice
1:50 Learn the Fretboard using the scales
2:29 How knowing the notes helps in a solo and how you use it
3:26 Step 2 - Learning the Diatonic Chords and Arpeggios
3:39 The chords are in the scale
3:58 Construction Diatonic arpeggios in the scale Cmaj7 and Dm7
4:32 What you need to know about the diatonic harmony
5:19 Knowing the notes of the chords in the scale and using that.
6:01 The 7th chords in Jazz and the Triads
6:30 Triads and how they are built
6:47 Triads in Jazz: Upper-structure triads and how they are used
6:56 Em triad as upper-structure on a G7
7:24 Step 3 - Beyond the Basics
7:44 The "Diatonic" Minor Pentatonic scales - Modern Jazz Sounds
8:11 The three Pentatonic scales
8:45 Connecting knowledge to understand the pentatonic scales
9:01 Super-imposing Pentatonic scales on Extended chords
9:32 Example of how to relate a pentatonic scale to a Cmaj7 chord
10:00 Improvising with the super-imposed scale
10:32 Quartal 3-part arpeggios
10:47 Playing the arpeggios and Quartal chords in the scale
11:02 The mysterious chords and how we use them
11:33 How to use the Quartal Arpeggios in your playing
11:56 Example of analyzing some chords against a Cmaj7
12:45 The Many other subsets, arpeggios and structures to work with
13:25 What you need to learn and use!
14:00 Do you have a favourite scale exercise or approach?
14:48 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page!

My name is Jens Larsen, Danish Jazz Guitarist, and Educator. The videos on this channel will help you explore and enjoy Jazz. Some of it is how to play jazz guitar, but other videos are more on Music Theory like Jazz Chords or advice on how to practice and learn Jazz, on guitar or any other instrument.

The videos are mostly jazz guitar lessons, but also music theory, analysis of songs and videos on jazz guitars.

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[JensLarsen]

Is scale practice just technique or is there more to it? 🙂

[paulafranceschi]

Oh, my god! That Em pentatonic over the Cmaj7 trick just changed my life. I have so many beautiful Cmaj7 songs! Thank you!!

[jumemowery]

Thanks Jens! The more I learn, the more I realize there is to learn.

[jefflancaster]

Thank you for this awesome offering. I really appreciate you taking time to film and post this.

[ggauche]

What I love about your content is that you obviously draw directly from your experience, but you have reflected and structured that for us. Great video Jens.

[mikepollack]

Jens I’m just getting into jazz guitar after 20 years of playing rock and metal. I really enjoy your lessons, you are a great teacher and I feel like I’m learning a lot from this channel. I find the jazz voicings so much more interesting than what I’ve been playing all this time. I still love rock and metal but I’m starting a new phase in my guitar journey and you are my go to guy for helping figure out how to play jazz. You are proficient at explaining the techniques to make it sound jazzy. I watch one of your videos every day, trying to learn as much as I can. Thank you for these videos they are very helpful! Cheers!

[antonshevchenko]

Jens, I've bee playing guitar since 18 years, and yesterday i decided to watch this video. I was playing accordion in my childhood. So, practicing 7th chords by playing thirds up and down gave me a feeling that i've never studied the neck by this way - which is incredible, I would incorporate it in my daily routine and I'm sure I'll know this sequences after a week of practice without even thinking "what the heck is coming after G D B... Eh. What... F, or what, ah u.. ok. It's A, clear as mud" . Especially it is hard for me when playing from up to down, but i think it's a matter of time. Thank you for an inspiration and giving a fresh breath to my exercises on guitar and music at all. God bless you.

[frankpike]

Thanks Jens I learned more in 15 minutes watching your video than years of unfocused practice:)

[fifthape]

You always start your videos with something that I already know, then quickly go to something on the edge of my knowledge. You always leave me with something new and things for me to practice. That reminds me of a quote, "We only learn what we already partly know."
I love your guitar. My guitars are either too big and heavy, are not cut-aways, and/or the necks without truss rods are warped.

[lucianodebenedictis]

I like your videos so much! My jazz guitar teacher in one of the few lessons threw there the idea of 3 pentatonics that fit over a major scale, and it sat there without an explanation. Now I'm at peace

[rebeccaabraham]

Thanks for a great video! You’ve confirmed what I started reaching for at the end of last year - that knowing your chord structures and intervals from wherever you are on the guitar makes a lot more sense than just memorising the ‘5 patterns’ that a lot of books and systems go on about, without being clear about the ‘why’.

[elitecombatfitnesscentral]

Jens again coming from a metal hard rock guitar player background scales were always going to be the staple of my practice regimen... but watching your videos has opened my mind to sit back and look and think about why certain things fit with certain things


thank you so much

keep doing what you're doing


I always find something good to learn in each of your videos

[slowjammerukdog]

My new year's resolution was to get back to basics with the guitar, learn the fingerboard properly and get a system together for connecting my scales, chords and arpeggios efficiently. I was looking for ideas online, and found this video. It's the first one of yours I've watched, Jens, and I'm an instant fan! There's SO much great stuff inside this 15 minutes. You cover a lot of the ideas I've been trying to think through, but you make them so clear and straightforward...and your whole approach is down-to-earth and inspiring. On top of the "basics" about diatonic relationships, etc, there's so much extra in here – enough to work on for months, maybe years. The material about finding and analysing quartal triads and pentatonics inside the major scale is just gold. Thanks, Jens. I'd better get working.., .

[tommasomeacci]

Discoverd your channel recently. the quality of this video is superb so many ideas. the key concept of making the scale musical is so overlooked I was struggling to find a way to practice this effectively. Thank you for sharing all these tips (I stopped at half video as I already have homeworks for months to come :D ). I think the other side of it is making the scale a tool available at hand (so that you can indeed focus on musicality) for me practicing scale vertically, horizonally and dianagolly with various excercise is also key get fluent and make it easier to apply musically later (not learning the box but learning notes and intervals)

[johnhawkes]

Wow what an awesome lesson. I've been noddling around the major scale patterns for sometime in a pretty aimless manner. I can join them all up seamlessly but not actually sure what I've achieved. This has given me a lot more to think about and will hopefully lead to something more musical once I add the arpeggios and some phrasing into the mix. Many thanks again.

[easthastings]

man your videos made me pick up my guitar after sitting in dust for years and start learning jazz.i started from nothing and now i'm practicing solid 5-6 hours a day. I know it's not enough to become a professional jazz guitarist but it's better than nothing. thanks jens..you are a wonderful specimen..

[GeorgeSPAMTindle]

It gives me enormous pleasure to watch one of Jens's videos and not learn anything at all. I usually pause, rewind, review a few times, and take a lot of notes, but not on this one. I'll enjoy the feeling until I watch the next one of Jens's videos, but for now I feel pleasantly smug.

[jamesjones-rpcl]

Thanks Jens I needed this !!! Mindless practice of running scale patterns is great for muscle memory but THAT IS ALL, THIS WAS A HUGE HELP !! MUCH APPRECIATED

[dasai]

This is awesome Jens. All of your stuff recently has been excellent.

[michange]

Indeed there is more than technique in practicing scales, and we can definitely use harmonic knowledge to spice up daily scale/arpeggio routine and make it more close to actual impro.