Advice on Songs and Scales

[Guitarlove]

Hey Chris Broderick and everyone else on this form,

First of all, I wanna say I saw you at Mayhem Fest in Shoreline!
I loved you guys and I was heartbroken you couldn't do a signing because I wanted to tell you how much you
and Megadeth meant to me.

I am currently learning guitar and to be honest with you, I don't practice songs as much because I'm too concerned
with learning scales and memorizing them and using a jamming track. What should I spend more time on, learning MORE songs or learning scales? I need your advice on how to find structure in both of these things since your one of my favorite guitar players. Thank you for taking the time to read this, love you and best wishes!!! :Spin:

 

[HeavyMetalVagabond]

well Im not Chris Broderick and no where near as good as him but I recommend doing both. Using a jamming track and jamming with scales is fun but its very important to work on other things. For example metal songs to improve your rhythm playing. And its also a good idea to try and play along and learn solos that you like and hopefully be able to apply some of those licks to your own playing.

A common mistake so many guitarists (including myself) make is to not "jam" enough or improvise enough. They focus so much on learning songs and other people's solos that they dont actually learn anything at all about how to make music, so make sure you keep doing a lot of what you're doing

 

[Chris_Broderick]

Thanks GuitarLove!

As with most things in life you need to balance them. I started out all scales and hated it when people were more impressed with someone playing Sweet Child of Mine as opposed to what I could do on the instrument Ahahahhaha, but at the end of the day it's about music and just practicing scales may be an aspect of music but only a fraction of it. Make time for both and that way you will pick up on the musical ideas in written solo's and the technique from the scale practice.

Take care, Chris.