Guitar Scale Mastery Review
Guitar Scale Mastery is a bit unusual in the online guitar lessons arena as it isn’t intended to teach beginners how to strum out a few songs on the guitar. What this system does is teach the skills necessary to play Lead guitar. To do this, instructor Craig Bassett focused on teaching students to be musical with guitar scales.
Most people learn to play the guitar by learning chords, then strumming patterns, then more chords. When they get comfortable with their chords they begin picking up stylistic tips from instructors, the internet or their favorite guitarists that help to fine tune their sound. This is usually enough to accompany another instrument or singer. It’s also a good step towards understanding the guitar. Now what if that guitar player is asked to improvise an amazing solo or devise a melody of scales played back to back. At this point just knowing chords won’t be enough. This is the point that most intermediate guitar players are at. This site is intended for intended for intermediate to advanced guitar players that want to take their skills to the next level.
Guitar Scale Mastery costs $67.00 for a 3 year membership. This includes the following:
- Access to the Guitar Scale Mastery website
- Pentatonic Guitar Success (246 page guide)
- How to Master the Sound of Any Scale (a 14 page guide)
- The Guitar Scale Mastery Mini-Course (5 parts guide)
- Five Powerful Practice Techniques Mini-Course
- Blank Fret board, Tab, and Chord Diagrams (download)
We signed up for a membership and took it for a test spin. Here’s our review.
FEATURES:
Course Organization
Guitar Scale Mastery starts off by orienting the student with a series of questions about how much time they have to practice and what concerns they have about playing scales. This teaching method keys the student in on the most important information to them. By doing this it creates an actively listening student that is ready to learn.
From there students are taken through a series of scale familiarity drills. These include a series of printable worksheets that Mr. Basset provides for students. This early portion of the course is expected to take anywhere from 8 days to as long as the student requires to memorize the materials. This is important to note because many of online guitar learning systems are intended to be fast. This one is more about being thorough. For that reason timing expectations should be adjusted accordingly.
After this familiarization period the course jumps ahead to learning scales. Mr. Basset helps to focus students on scales that will improve the sound of their playing the quickest. Less important scales are left to the end of the course removing the common stumbling block of learning scales you’ll use less often.
Guitar Scale Mastery utilizes a play-by-ear method that asks the student to simultaneously visualize they’re fingering of the fret board. This creates the aural-mental connection that will eventually become the muscle memory used for fast, musical scale playing.
At this point students will learn to play a series of string-scale methods. Single-string scales continue to reinforce muscle memory and the general layout of scales. Two-string scales will further the effectiveness of the previous lesson. Three-note-per-string scales will improve widen the effective usable area of the fret board and improve students’ musicality. These are versatile methods that apply across nearly all genres of guitar playing.
Lesson Format
Guitar Scale Mastery’s lessons are all web based. Most are static pages, with diagrams and lots of downloadable content to print. This is a basic no-frills website that focuses more on learning than aesthetics. Occasionally this can hamper the learning experience due to the sheer amount of text on each page.
Community
No community is available with this course.
Extra Tools & Features
Guitar Scale Mastery includes several guides that either reinforce the original course or build on it. Most notables are as follows:
A 246 guide called “Pentatonic Guitar Success”. This is niche guide that covers the background theory needed to fully understand both major and minor pentatonic scales. Covered are the most common fingerings for the pentatonic scales. The techniques used to play effective pentatonic scales. Finishing off with a myriad of playing techniques, melodies, and exercises that will improve your pentatonic scale work.
Other extras are the How to Master the Sound of Any Scale guide, the Guitar Scale Mastery Mini-Course. This is a quick version of the full Guitar Scale Mastery.com system. Another mini-course titled “Five Powerful Practice Techniques”. Finally downloadable and printable blank fret board, tablature, and Chord Diagrams sheets in Adobe Reader (.pdf) format.
Support
Guitar Scale Mastery offers email support Monday thorough Friday. Turnaround time is 2 business days.
Ordering Information
The Guitar Scale Mastery system costs $67.00 for a 3 year membership. All major credit cards are accepted. Membership activation is instantaneous.
Guitar Scale Mastery has a 60 day refund policy. Quoted from the website
“If you are unhappy with your decision to buy for ANY reason, just let me know within 60 days and I’ll give you a full refund. You have nothing to lose”
Conclusion
Guitar Scale Mastery isn’t for everyone or every level of guitar player. This system is specifically designed for players who want to improve their ability to play scales melodically, solo, and become more musical. The website isn’t the prettiest thing we’ve ever seen. Information can be somewhat convoluted. Graphics are not beautiful. These areas could use some improvement. What is beautiful is the concept behind the program. That is to say, guitar players that dedicate themselves to Guitar Scale Mastery will walk away far improved, and that’s beautiful music to our ears.
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