GUITAR GRIMOIRE QUESTION!! {PLEASE READ!}

It seems to me you'd want to focus on major scale/ natural minor scale and the major/minor pentatonic scales. At least those are the ones I use most. When I'm feeling ambitious, I venture off into the harmonic minor, but never feel all that comfortable with it. There are many far wiser players who visit the theory board and are well versed in different scales. I offer these just as a suggestion for a place to begin.

Thanks so much for your input! I guess my other questions would be what KEYs would I benefit mostly from learning if I am mostly playing in DROP D, standard tuning and DROP C..?

thanks so much!

Fingerings in drop D and drop C will be identical - you'd just play 2 frets higher in drop C to get the identical tones as if you're in drop D.

Most guitar music is in the keys of G, D, A, and E, because those have the most finger-friendly chords. Many songwriters aren't accomplished guitarists, so a lot more songs are written in the "easy" keys. You'll also find some songs in C and F, because those aren't too hard.

If you cover songs with big horn/sax parts, you'll find a bunch in Bb and Eb, because those are easy keys for brass. The other keys are rarer, but you'll find a few tunes in every key - a couple off the top of my head in odd keys are "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray - I think that's in B - and "Linus and Lucy" by Vince Guaraldi - as I recall, that's in Ab.

All 5 modes of the major pentatonic scale, Minor 6 pentatonic, Dorian Pentatonic, All 5 modes of the major blues scale, Major Scale and all it's modes, Harmonic Minor Scale and all it's modes, Melodic Minor Scale and all it's modes, Harmonic Major and All its modes, Bebop Scales, Wholetone Scale, HW and WH Diminished Scales.

As long as your playing Western music, those are the only scales you will ever need. Then Some.

In case you haven't noticed, the fretboard maps in the Guitar Grimoire series are all in "standard" tuning. The info on scales, chords and such is all universally applicable, of course.

Don't let the Grimoire intimidate you...just learning the major scale and its modes, as well as the harmonic/melodic minor scale (which I prefer to see as one entity) is enough for most musical sitiuations. And pentatonic minor as well, of course. The rest is nice if you want to experiment and try new stuff, but isn't really necessary. Just try stuff out and see what you like...or maybe you'll find a song that uses one of the other scales.