Also respectfully, Eve--you have to use scales to do all of those things that you mentioned--and if you can do all of those things, playing the scale itself requires minimal effort.

When I began teaching guitar, I contacted a number of people that I had known over the years who stopped playing, to ask them why. The all gave the same answer--they were no longer were interested in the music that they'd learned to play, and didn't know the to move on to anything else.


As for PeterT--playing scales is a hobgoblin for a lot of people, but it is easy and fun