Circle of Fifths | Practice No. 1 | Open Position Scales
Added 2020-07-15 20:15:45 +0000 UTCNew here? Wondering where to start? Click here
This is the 1st practice video that accompanies Music Theory for Guitar • Lesson 4 • Circle of Fifths
In this practice video, we'll work through all the Major Scales in the order that the circle of fifths gives us. Starting with a C Major Scale, we'll move through all the possible sharp scales, then we'll go back to the key of C and move through all the flat keys. For this exercise, we'll try to use as many open notes as possible, staying in 1st position on the guitar. In Practice No. 2, we'll do the exact same thing but with only movable scale shapes.
Check out the PDF below and feel free to post your progress and questions in the Patreon Community post for this lesson.
Have a question? Ask on the weekly live Q&A, called Office Hours. Also, check out Practice Thoughts if you need help figuring out how to practice.
Play-Along Practice Tracks:
Other lessons in this series:
- Homework
Check out the Lesson Archive for more Music Theory lessons.
This lesson is part of my Music Theory For Guitar series.
Comments
It looks like there is! Good catch! The first note of the F scale is a half step down. Should be starting on the first fret
Scott Paul Johnson
2025-03-04 18:25:01 +0000 UTChey, is there a print mistake at 2:18 timestamp on F scale?
Rohit Saluunke
2025-03-04 17:03:09 +0000 UTCwhats the purpose to have this if we have major scale already , like the first shape you taught
nikki
2024-03-22 08:34:55 +0000 UTCI'll copy and paste your question to the next Office hours and answer there.
Scott Paul Johnson
2023-05-22 16:25:00 +0000 UTCLove these lessons but im struggling a bit with my small hands :/. Playing on an acoustic probably doesn't help much either.
jesse nolan
2023-05-21 21:42:43 +0000 UTCLeon - this one is tricky, buy the next one shows the power of learning shapes - you can play ALL these scales with one fingering if you don't use open notes.
Scott Paul Johnson
2022-07-05 16:57:23 +0000 UTCshifting scales here is pretty hard for me and it always gets me off tempo,. gotta git gud
Leon Neri
2022-07-05 16:41:46 +0000 UTCWhat a challenge!!! But it's indeed a great method to memorise the fretboard... and it's gonna take me a while. Found that reading the notes out loud when playing helps solidating the memory Good work on teaching, Scotty!!
Wing hei luk
2022-03-08 08:34:31 +0000 UTCNico - not a very common question, but I bet you can search my lesson archive for keywords and find live Q&As where common questions are answered! As for your question, the main idea is to be able to do what you want deliberately. If you notice yourself doing something different, thats fine! You might be describing something called "efficiency picking" - look it up and see if that sounds nice! AS for alternate picking, it's MOSTLY about counting - each measure can look like this DUDUDUDU 1 +2 +3 +4 + So if you play a beat that is something like: 1 2+ +4+ Your picking pattern would look like this, to match: 1 2+ +4+ D DU UDU This is kind of alternate picking and kind of flatpicking - if you watch my strumming series, I'm basically doing the exact same concept, but with single notes instead of strums. Lesson archive: https://www.scottpauljohnson.com/patreon-lesson-archive Strumming lesson: https://www.scottpauljohnson.com/strumming-patterns
Scott Paul Johnson
2021-12-30 19:25:37 +0000 UTCHey Scott, I'm here for a month now and loving it so far. Thxalot for all the work on that awesome content. Now I have my first question. You allways stress, that when using alternate picking, we should stick to strictly up and down (strict alternation). Now I realised, that I just intuitively use double down when switching from a lower to a higher string and vice versa double up, when going to a lower string and it kinda makes some sense to me (especieally in terms of speed). Besides this my alternation is 100% strict. Now is this a bad habbit and if so why. Just want to hear your opinion on wheater I should get rid of it (quite some effort) or stick to it. Thxalot, Nico p.S.: is there a way to search all your posts / comment sections for topics, so you dont have to answer the same questions over and over again - I bet both are quite common Qs (sorry) p.p.S. sorry for my lousy english - Im not a native speaker
Nico Curian
2021-12-30 09:49:42 +0000 UTCHi Hueman. Not yet! But I recommend checking out Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method Grade 1
Scott Paul Johnson
2021-11-06 17:54:45 +0000 UTCHey Scott, do you have a lesson explaining how to read notes?
Hueman
2021-11-06 11:20:17 +0000 UTCIt's indeed a powerful and challenging exercise!
Rafael
2021-08-21 10:41:52 +0000 UTCI'm so sorry to hear that the PDF isn't opening. What kind of device are you opening it on?
Scott Paul Johnson
2021-06-16 21:20:12 +0000 UTCHello, I really enjoy the lessons. I'm having some trouble accessing the PDF's. A lot of them don't open, I can't open this practice one, is there a way round this? Really enjoy the lessons.
Philip Murphy
2021-06-16 19:09:20 +0000 UTCHi Andrew - It's up to you. They are definitely good to know and will massively help you understand the guitar if you think about the note names while you do it, but technique-wise, I don't think you need to perfect them before you move on. Especially since the next lesson shows you how to do the same thing but in a much much easier way.
Scott Paul Johnson
2021-01-01 21:25:31 +0000 UTCHey Scott! What would you say is the main takeaway for this exercise? Should we be able to recall these scales patterns on the fretboard by memory? Or are we looking to just looking to get a better understanding of where notes are on the fretboard? Definitely a tricky exercise for me so I just want to make sure I'm focused on learning it right, thanks for the help!
Andrew Chin
2020-12-30 23:30:24 +0000 UTCThis is amazing. finally making progress, this has also helped me a ton in understanding piano. Thank you for your hardwork and dedication to making this stuff easier to understand and practice.
Julien-Alexandre Guichard
2020-12-16 20:29:31 +0000 UTCHi John - it took a while but I got a 30, 40, and 50BPM set for this lesson and the practice #2 lesson. These things actually take a little while to edit
Scott Paul Johnson
2020-11-10 22:38:48 +0000 UTCI'll get that going! Thanks for bringing it up!
Scott Paul Johnson
2020-10-28 19:24:11 +0000 UTCI support John Lee's idea mentioned above. I'm also having trouble practicing the scales using the practice tracks because the speed is too fast. If there was a way to alter the video playback speed on Vimeo this would be easy to solve; however, Vimeo's "speed controls" are only available to paying members. Unlike the major and minor scale practice tracks for other lessons in the music theory series, the practice tracks for the circle of fifths are comprised of half notes, making the pace of the notes 120 notes per minute. This pace is too fast for me, a beginner, to learn comfortably. I think the easiest solution would be to add three additional practice tracks: 30bpm (60 notes per minute), 40bpm (80 notes per minute), and 50bpm (100 notes per minute). Adding those additional practice tracks would help me immensely, and likely others too. Cheers!
Alexander Roman
2020-10-28 18:13:01 +0000 UTCIt's taken me two weeks, practicing every day, to go from virtually nothing to "mostly" remembering and playing all the scales in this homework, but I still can't keep up with the 60BPM. I reckon I could do with a 40BPM version, if you get five minutes! Keep up the good work!
John Lee
2020-10-03 14:50:23 +0000 UTCHi Allen - since this is exclusive content, I’m hesitant to allow people to download videos. Sorry! However; if you use QuickTime you can record the screen
Scott Paul Johnson
2020-07-18 18:43:27 +0000 UTChi i have limited time on internet do you think you can send practice tracks for download here.
Allan Siuluta
2020-07-18 17:55:37 +0000 UTC
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