Guitar Scale Lesson – The 80/20 Rule Applied To Guitar Scale Mastery

In this guitar scale lesson we’ll take a look at one of the major roadblocks to guitar scale mastery—unnecessary learning and practice. What I mean by this is learning or practicing things that don’t directly improve your ability to use guitar scales in a practical way. Let’s take a look at a really common example…

I’ve noticed over the years that some guitarists over-analyze theory. Rather than sticking to learning practical, useful and immediately applicable theory they want to know it all. A really good example would be a guitarist who wants to know the historical development of scales. It’s not enough for them to know what notes form a guitar scale and how to use the scale. They also want to know when the scale first came into existence, and it’s historical development.

On the surface, this may appear to be a really positive thing for the guitarist to want to know. But I’ve found that it can
really slow down their guitar scale learning progress. Why? Here are two major reasons…

Major Reason 1:

It doesn’t help them play better. Learning the historical development of a guitar scale doesn’t do anything to help you learn to USE the scale. Sure, the knowledge might help you pass a music history course, but it sure isn’t going to help you play burning guitar solos! Here’s an analogy. You don’t need to understand the inner-workings of the internal combustion engine in order to drive a car. (Unless you’re a mechanic that is!).

Major Reason 2:

It takes valuable time away from more important learning activities. The time spent researching unnecessary theory could be better spent on useful activities that actually help you use the guitar scale.

So how does all this relate to the 80/20 rule? Before I go into that I need to quickly explain the 80/20 rule just in case you don’t know it…

The 80/20 rule states that for many phenomena 80% of the results stem from 20% of the causes. Or put in the context of learning guitar scales…

20% of what you practice and learn about guitar scales will create 80% of your ability to actually use guitar scales!

Now, before you say anything…no, I can’t prove the above statement. I can’t give you verifiable, scientific evidence. And do you know what? It doesn’t matter! It’s simply a belief I have that helps me FOCUS. It helps me concentrate my time totally on activities that will truly help me use guitar scales in a practical way. Our time on this planet is limited, so why waste our guitar scale practice time on things that won’t DIRECTLY improve our playing?

To finish off, here are a few questions. Please invest some time thinking about them. Think specifically about how the question could help improve your ability to play guitar scales.

**How does the 80/20 rule apply to the guitar scales that you need to master?

**How does the 80/20 rule apply to the music theory that you need to learn?

**How does the 80/20 rule apply to the keys that you need to learn for each guitar scale?

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