New Practice Resource: Open Position Scales

The Open Position Scales book gives a practical approach for beginner guitarists to practice their scales every day without being overwhelmed.

I began studying and playing the classical guitar in 2009, and throughout the years I’ve developed and revised my day-to-day practice book. From this practice book, I’ve developed several routines that I thought would be helpful to the classical/fingerstyle guitarist community. So, from time to time, I will be releasing what I’m calling Practice Resources.

Practice Resources will consist of digital PDFs and physical books that are not only scale books, chord books, or technical resources, but also a practical approach to practicing all of the techniques that you need to touch on each week.

What’s so different about this Scales book?

Have you ever seen a scale book only dedicated to Open Position Scales? I haven’t. I think that’s why I’ve started with the Open Position Scales book, but as I said, this is not just a scale book: it’s a practice approach. How is that? I’m glad you asked. When approaching the practice of scales, you’ll notice that you have 24 major and (relative) minor scales in 12 keys.

There are other scales to learn as well, however, let’s just start with the relative minor scales. As a guitarist, you would want to learn as many scales in as many keys as possible. With the abundance of scales, modes, and positions, can be overwhelming. So, I got to thinking, how can one approach this awe-inspiring task?

I start with the major scale, next play the relative minor of that scale, and then move on to the major scale of the fifth degree. I have found that you can get through all of the major and relative minor scales in six days by only practicing them for five to ten minutes each day. Okay, that sounds more complicated than it is:

Let me show you What I Mean

It’s Monday (oh Monday), and you have sat down to practice your guitar. Opening the Open Position Scales book, you see the C major scale. You play through the scale, slowly at first, getting the notes under your fingers.

As you finish up the C major scale, you move on to the A minor scale, the relative minor of C major.

Once you finished A minor, you move to G major, and then to E minor. Before you know it, you have played through the first four scales for the week. On Tuesday, you move on to D major, B minor, A major, F# minor… and so on and so forth. It’s pretty much that straightforward. Once you have finished playing through the book, you start over again on Monday.