Scales outside of your chosen area of music

[caeman]

One of the things I see preached here is to practice your scales. Get to know them all. This seems logical advice that is hard to argue with. You are also practicing your fingering technique and giving your hands some exercise, which always seems good for the muscles.

But, after a while, and once you have set upon a certain style of music...do you find it hard to worry about or practice the scales that are outside of your area of music?

In Irish Traditional music, for example, nearly all of the music is in G or D major. With A major coming in a distance third. Irish trad just happens to be the two primary areas of music for me (the other being gospel).

[mambo4]

If what you are talking about is simply different keys, like C or G versus Eb and F (which it seems like you are),

think there is a point at which we gain enough insight to see it's all one major scale that just moves around. But by that point, I suppose you are already fluent in all keys anyhow.

Any exercise worth practicing is worth it in all keys IMHO, especially when we are talking about the first 5 frets. That's the only way the unique fingering challenges of each key get ingrained in your muscles/mind.

[Jim Carr]

Since you only need G, D, and A major, maybe you could return the other notes to GC and get a refund? You don't need Bb or Eb, but hang on to Ab, because you can reuse it as G# in the key of A, and same for Db, as it can be recycled as C# in A.

Come to think of it, you may want to keep C natural handy for G major and because you can add it to a D major triad to get a dominant 7th for modulating from D to G or even just to nail down the tonic in G. Also, F natural might be handy if you ever want a G7, but maybe you could return it if you are really certain you don't need C major anymore.

So I guess returning F, Bb, and Eb might be worth it, or perhaps you could trade them for a few extra Gs, Ds, and As. I hear some of those jazz guys don't use G, D, and A as much as the flat keys, maybe they would do a deal?

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by mambo4

there is a point at which we gain enough insight to see it's all one major scale that just moves around.

You would think. And yet when I was in graduate school at the conservatory I met a lot of very talented musicians who could not appreciate this abstraction, because for them the sound of a G major was so different from the sound of a D major or A major or any other major scale/chord.

iow, they had such a refined sense of absolute pitch -- which in most cases you would think is a good thing -- that it became detrimental to their identifying structural commonalities.

Personally I think too many string instrument players gain this "insight" as a result of the pattern-oriented layout of the fingerboard, and therefore don't develop enough awareness of the audible identities of individual keys, chords, pitch collections, etc. But you need a balance of both!

[Michael Campbel]

Originally Posted by Jim Carr

Since you only need G, D, and A major, maybe you could return the other notes to GC and get a refund?

I tried that once but because I had (inadvertantly or not), used them already, they said no deal. =(

[LowDown Hal]

You must have had the notes for more than 30 days.

[mambo4]

Originally Posted by Hoover

...when I was in graduate school at the conservatory I met a lot of very talented musicians ... for them the sound of a G major was so different from the sound of a D major or A major or any other major scale/chord.
... string instrument players... as a result of the pattern-oriented layout of the fingerboard....don't develop enough awareness of the audible identities of individual keys, chords, pitch collections, etc.!

Point taken! In my limited understanding, the different "sound" of various keys is more of a characteristic of Just Intonation tuned instruments, and not even tempered as our fretted instruments are...I once heard on a podcast or somesuch a demonstration of a D minor piano piece performed first on an even temepred piano and then on a piano 'tuned' to Dminor using Just Intonation. the difference was subtle to me, but it was detectable. If I remembered I'd post a link...

That said my point about "all keys are the same" was a statement about the abstract geometry of the fingerboard/ scale shapes, rather than any sonic equivalence.

[Bassman203]

If you can play a g major scale, your can play any major scale. Why would you play a major scale on every note unless you were doing a speed exercise or maybe working on understanding what notes you could play within a certain key to make it sound good.

When I think of practicing scales, I don't think of repeating the major scale over and over again in different keys, I think of playing different types of scales and modes.