The biggest mistake you can make with scales is thinking that they will make killer riffs and licks. They won’t.
Killer riffs and licks are like delicious recipes prepared by a talented chef. They are a combination of delicious ingredients mixed and cooked to perfection. And those ingredients are scales. If you…
1. know your scales and …
2. understand your scales and …
3. practice your scales …
…you will have a better understanding of the ingredients that make delicious riffs and licks, and you will have better dexterity to be able to play them on your instrument. But you still won’t know how to make your own killer licks.
Ingredients are not recipes. You don’t eat spoonful’s of raw flour. And scales - on their own - won’t give you killer licks. Many people treat harmonica scales as though they alone are what you need to play songs. This is like handing someone a sack of flour and asking them to bake you blueberry muffins. Instead of robotically learning scales - up and down, up and down, which is fine for drilling technique, but not so hot for actually playing ear-catching music - you need to learn them in a MUSICAL way, and see how melodies fit within them, like how I teach here.