Yes, these are a few of MY (yes… me, me, me!) favorite scale exercises. Some of them are tricky, some aren’t as tricky, but they all accomplish the same thing… getting us more familiar with our scale shapes.
Scale Exercise | 4 Note Pattern
This one is just as you’d imagine, going up in groups of 4’s. This one I like because it’s like running a bunch of mini scales within the scale. Fun!
Major Scale Intervals | 3rds
This one is probably one of the exercises I hear in solos all the time. So while it’s a fun exercise, you can actual throw it into a solo too!
Diatonic 7th Arpeggios
This one is probably the trickiest as it lends itself to some interesting ways to get all the arpeggios to fit into the scale pattern!
2 String Horizontal Scales
This is meant to break out of boxes. I like the neat and tidy boxes guitar gives us sometimes, but the 2 string horizontal scale exercises is a great way to start looking at our guitar differently!
Circle of Fourths
This is such a cool way to work through a lot of our patterns. It gets us thinking about the relations between the keys too!
So there we have it, 5 of my favorite scale exercises. I know when I warm up I always try to pick different ones to run through. Hopefully these can add some more flavor into your routine and help see scale shapes in a different light!