Where should i begin?

i was wondering to those who studied theories and scales where did they start i mean what lesson did they took first and learned it step by step..
could anyone help me out?

Music theory as an consept is pretty wide with many areas, but I think you could first learn Major and the minor scale also you might want to check out this lesson.

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/lesson.php?id=104

It could be good for a start.

what i did (and what i still do just as sort of a warmup/practice/excercise/do while i'm watching TV) is play the scales in a box pattern up and down the neck in the order of the circle of fifths, starting on C and going first sharps then flats.

if you don't know what that means, it's C, G, D, A, E, B, etc. back until you get to C again. the pattern is basically C, then G, then back to C and go up a whole step. then back to G and up a whole step.

simplified even further, you can just use the fret numbers. 8, 3, 10, 5, 12, 7, 14, 9. from here you can go to 4 or 16 depending on whether you want to work on stretching your fingers more (lower frets are wider) or work on crunching your fingers in more (higher frets are squished together)

16, 11, 18, 13, 8 (or)
4, 11, 6, 13, 8

i do this for each scale. major scale, minor scale, pentatonics are easy to learn, as is the blues minor (and major if you want), and eventually you can do the different modes of each scale...

I would suggest you start filling in blank fretboard charts from memory. Things make more sense the more you know.

Cheers for posting my lesson Empirism! :D After looking at mine, definitely take a look at Afro_Raven's lesson on the major scale and modes, too.

Anyway...

I'd definitely learn the box position of the major scale first - BOTH famous positioins, so the one with two notes on the 6th string and the other with three notes. This way you can start to understand that the idea of a scale is not limited to one little shape; the entire guitar is useful.

Every string, fret and note is valuble in some way... it's just going to take a while to fully understand that. :)

Always learn at least one chord, every day. Remember the name, remember the position, remember the notes and eventually study how this chord originally comes from a scale. Keep asking to yourself more and more questions about this!!!


Also, in maybe two weeks time from you doing this... take a propper look at apreggios. Understand that an arpeggio is just a broken chord - simply playing the notes one after the other.

Let's keep it at that for now... :) I hope this helps, and good luck!!

i started with the basic open chords like Emin, Emaj, E7, Am, Amaj,A7, ect then there was the circle of 5th's (4th's) which is a life saver for me, then i learned the first 5 frets of every string ect, then the major scale and its modes and the arpeggios for said modes, my teacher also wanted me to make extensions for each arpeggio as well like 9ths and above. this is all stuff i learned in guitar class at my school, then the harmonic minor and melodic minor with all their arpeggios. i dont really care for the melodic minor though. im still working on my chord vocabulary. there is also music reading ect as well

@guitarmastergod,

I like your sequence of learning theory. Sounds very practical and doable. As someone who has played for years and never had any real formal training I would recomend your approach to a begginer. I even recomend it for myself!

Thnx to guys..
ill take note all of what you said..
^^