Scales For Lead Guitar Archives - Page 3 of 5

Spanish Guitar Scales: Add A Taste Of Spain To Your Lead Lines & Melodies

Spanish guitar scales are used by classical composers, flamenco guitarists and rock and jazz guitarists who wish to give their music a Spanish feel. These scales can sound very effective in a variety of musical situations, and make a refreshing change to pentatonic and blues scales.

On this page you’ll find a complete guide to playing the major pentatonic scale on guitar. We start with a basic major pentatonic scale guitar pattern, then introduce additional fretboard patterns that will allow you to play major pentatonic scales all over the guitar neck. Tab / notation is also provided.

There’s also a backing track over which you can improvise solos using pentatonic major scales.

Let’s get started…

The name 'Arabic Scale' has been given to several different scales, each of which has an 'Middle Eastern' sound when played. Each of the scales below has at some time been referred to as an 'Arabic scale'.

Although the scales on this page may have been used in traditional Arabic music (or are at least reminiscent of scales that were), it's unlikely that the original musicians were thinking in terms of Western theory or notation; the scales here are likely more 'translations' of the actual scales that were used.

On this page you’ll find a complete guide to learning and using pentatonic scales on guitar. From the basic pentatonic scale guitar fretboard pattern to improvising using minor pentatonic scales all over the guitar neck; once you’ve been through this guide you’ll be a pentatonic scale expert!

Let’s get started…

Welcome to our complete guide to guitar modes and modal playing. By the end of this page you'll be able to incorporate modes into your own guitar solos and songs.

Modes are widely used in lead guitar improvisation. This page shows you how to construct and play modal scales on the guitar. Scale diagrams and tab are provided, so there's no need for you to be able to read music in order to start experimenting with modes.

Welcome to the complete guide to metal guitar scales. On this page you'll find out what guitar scales are used in metal, what they sound like and how they're played.

We've provided fretboard diagrams and tab, and we've also recorded some sample guitar solos so you can hear the scales being used.

Once you're familiar with the scale shapes and the sounds that they produce, experiment by playing your own solos over the metal backing track at the bottom of the page.

This page contains bebop scale guitar tab, fingerboard diagrams, notation and information. Using these you'll be able to play all of the forms of this useful scale – all over the neck.

The Gypsy Scale produces a rather beautiful, exotic sound that is seldom heard in western music. On this page you'll learn how to play the Gypsy scale on guitar (with notation, tab and fretboard diagrams), and you'll also find out about some similar scales.

On this page you'll find Mixolydian scale guitar tab, fretboard diagrams and information. We'll show you how to play a Mixolydian scale on guitar, and what a Mixolydian scale actually is.

You can find other interesting scales here: Guitar Scales Main Page.
Download a printable guitar scales book here: Guitar Scales Chart Book.

Exotic guitar scales can intoduce some real variety into your improvisation and set you apart from the crowd. Many of the exotic guitar scales on this page are from non-Western musical cultures, where there is less emphasis on the major / minor key systems that create the basis of most Western music.