Walz Guitar - Scale Practice Idea

One of my students is resisting learning scales. He doesn't accept how useful scales can be. Here's an idea for practicing scales that came from working with him.

Choose a scale form. I'll use the first minor pentatonic. The form is below. Within that form, find chord shapes.


|----------------------5-8--|
|------------------5-8------|
|--------------5-7----------|
|----------5-7--------------|
|------5-7------------------|
|--5-8----------------------|

With this example, there's Am, Am4, Am11, D2, Em7, D4, Em7#9, and probably some others. I'll start with Am, fretted from low to high: 5, 7, 7, 5, 5, 5. Strum the chord then play around with the scale form. Use the chord to define the 1 beat to give some structure. Start simple by hitting the chord then playing the scale upward. For example, I used vertical lines to represent beats:


|--5--|------|------|-------|-5--|------|----5-|--8p5--|
|--5--|------|------|-------|-5--|----5-|--8---|-------|
|--5--|------|------|----5--|-5--|--7---|------|-------|
|--7--|------|----5-|--7----|-7--|------|------|-------|
|--7--|----5-|--7---|-------|-7--|------|------|-------|
|--5--|--8---|------|-------|-5--|------|------|-------|

Find phrases using runs, slurs, trills, triplets, bends, accents, whatever that sound good to you. One you wear out a chord, try another. The next part will get into linking a second scale form onto this idea.