The Blog of Rock Guitar Power

Understanding How Guitar Chords and Music Scales Work Together

By: Mike Deiure

If you are learning to play guitar and are starting to get into playing leads,
solos, and improvising, then it is very important to understand what guitar
scales to practice and when to use them. Before we go shredding away playing
crazy guitar solos, we need to take a look at what type of chords are being
used in our song or chord progression to help us decide what scales on guitar
will work the best.

The basic idea of how chords and scales go together is this: If a chord is
only made up of a couple notes (such as a power chord) then you will want to
play a pentatonic scale over it because this scale only has five notes in it.
If a chord is made up of three or more notes (such as a major or minor chord),
full major and minor scales will work better because they are made up of seven
notes and have more notes in common with the chord. One of the great things
about soloing and using scales in rock music is that once you have found your
key signature and corresponding scale, you don’t need to worry about changing
it if you don’t want to. The one scale will work great for the whole song. When
playing over more complex styles of music, such as jazz, one guitar scale won’t
work for the entire song. You need to change scales as the chords change.

The most popular type of chord in Rock music is by far the Power
Chord. If your looking for basic guitar chords then look no further. Power
Chords are the simplest chords for guitar because they only contain two notes,
the root and the fifth. When your playing guitar scales over a chord you want
the two to have as many notes in common as possible. Since a power chord only
has two notes in it, a pentatonic scale (the king of all rock guitar scales)
is always a great choice to use. This is because it is made up of only five
notes instead of seven like the major and minor scale has. The one thing that
you need to make sure of is that you are starting the scale on the same root
note as the key signature (i.e. if your song is in A Minor, then you need to
start the minor pentatonic scale on an A).

Should I use a Major or Minor Pentatonic Scale?

The safest bet here is to always stick with the Minor Pentatonic Scale. Most
rock songs and chord progressions are in minor key signatures so the minor pentatonic
scale will always work great. You can always use the major pentatonic scale
too, you just have to make sure to play it in the relative major key (we will
talk more about this concept in future articles).

When should I use full Major and Minor scales?

I am a big fan of Major and Minor
scales because they give you the opportunity to really shred and they give you
the ability to create very fluid lines. Using them in rock music is a little
trickier than using minor pentatonic scales though. The best time to use these
scales is when your song uses major and minor chords instead of power chords.
The cool thing about these types of chord progressions is that you can still
use a Minor Pentatonic Scale if you want to keep it simple or you can integrate
both scales and create some really cool and unique licks.

For a great lesson on how to practice guitar scales, visit the Members
Section on the Rock Guitar Power website. There is a bunch of backing tracks
there, in different keys and styles, to help you practice your lead playing,
create your own solos, and work on your improvising skills. Be sure to check
out the examples to get an idea of how to work with these tracks.