Some learn well through visual means, while others commit to developing muscle memory using the major scale formula (or any scale formula) over time. To memorize these five major scale shapes, you can go about it in a variety of ways. ( You can find the basics here.) Yes, you should memorize them. I encourage you to study music theory, as it is an essential element to mature musicianship. It’s all great to know, but the way we are using scales here is mainly as a technical exercise (getting your fingers to work better). Theoretical knowledge will help you understand such things as key signatures ( you might have heard of the key of C major, or key of G major for instance), their relationship with scales (both major scales and minor scales), chord progressions, whole steps, half steps, and much more.
Knowing all this information is what we call theoretical knowledge (or music theory). We simply adjust the scale by a whole step or half step (a whole step is 2 frets on the guitar and a half step is 1 fret). Most of the shapes we look at here are in the first position ( the first four frets of the guitar) and cover what we call two octaves or three octaves. They simply get started with a different root note within the shape! We also see in the video that we can have a scale shape starting on different strings, from the low e string (6th string) all the way up to the high e string (1st string). In many instances, the scale shape is unchanged. Some of the scales you may commonly hear about are the major pentatonic scale, g major scale, the natural minor scale, minor pentatonic scale, c major scale, and e minor scale for example. What that means is that minor scales, modes, altered scales, and others are mostly based on these five basic shapes. What’s interesting about these five major scale shapes is that they form the structure for most other scales in western music. Especially if you approach them with specific goals or desires. Playing major scales can refocus your attention on details and sharpen your hearing. Scales are also a great way to change gears in the middle of practice. I can just turn on my metronome, fine-tune my hearing, and get lost in the challenges I set for myself.
For me, I appreciate a clearly defined goal that is primarily physical in nature. On the other hand, some people, like myself, really enjoy practicing scales. Thwacked knuckles and forced regimes can turn one off of scales work and not want to play scales ever again. Perhaps some anti-scale types have been “damaged” by some militant childhood piano teacher. Many people I have met have strong emotional responses, one way or the other when they think about practicing classical guitar scales.
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