The Segovia Scales

Hi there fellow guitarists! In this lesson I’ll be sharing with you what I believe to be the best all-around scale for you to learn in your early days on guitar. The complete set of Segovia scales are quite exhaustive and are actually an enormous and intimidating challenge for any guitarist to master and memorise. These scale patterns came into vogue after the legendary guitarist Andres Segovia claimed that he incorporated these scale ideas into his daily practice. In many respects it was like being given the keys to the Ferrari. Many guitarists of the time immediately set about copying the great maestro and going to great lengths to explain these scales with suggestions on how to practice them and why they were of such significant didactic and technical importance to aspiring students of classical guitar. 

One Scale To Rule Them…

This is probably going to be quite controversial but here’s why I think it’s the only guitar scale you need to learn:

• It covers 3 octaves

• In the lower position it stretches out your fingers

• There are 5 position shifts

• It moves through the most common, useful areas on the guitar

• It uses all 6 strings

• It travels all the way from the 3rd fret to the 15th

Suggested Right-Hand Fingering Combinations:

• i, m & m, i

• i, a & a, i

• m, a & a, m

• i, m, a & a, m, i

• i, m, i, a

• p, i & i, p

• p, m & m, p

• p, a & a, p

Have fun and let your fingers fly!

Josh