Major scale patterns

by bennybun
(CA)

Question: Hi Mike, I always visit this site for theory lessons and that helped me a lot. I'm a little confused and just need clarification if I'm on the right track...

I'm playing a major scale in this sequence:

e----------------------------------7-9-10--
B---------------------------7-9-10---------
G---------------------6-7-9----------------
D---------------6-7-9----------------------
A---------5-7-9----------------------------
E---5-7-9----------------------------------

Is this A major? Am I doing it correctly? I'm seeing other diagrams playing 2 notes on the low E then the 3rd playing 1 fret lower at the A string and so on...

I'm confused because you said that a major scale is 5 frets wide.

Answer

Your tab is correct and is just another way of playing the major scale from that first position using 3 notes per string.

However, the most common first position pattern, which you will have seen me refer to on this site, is the boxed pattern, spanning 4 frets...



If you follow the process outlined in the guitar scales patterns lesson for every scale you learn, you can pull out patterns such as the one you tabbed by merging the boxed patterns built on each of the scale's degrees (often referred to as scale positions).