The Major Scale on Guitar
Major scale basics

The major scale should be the first scale you learn, because when building chords or other scales, the major scale is the "starting point". You'll see what I mean as we progress.

I just want to make it clear though - this lesson is not just about lead guitar. It's about the major scale in its purest form and how it appears across the entire fretboard of your guitar...

It's about using these visual patterns to construct chords, arpeggios and other sequences in a particular key, confidently. This concept is covered in far more depth in the Guitar Scale Mastery course.

Major scale guitar intervals and basics

So what makes it a "scale"? One word - intervals.

Intervals are the spaces/gaps between each tone in a scale, the separation of tones across a scale.

Hopefully, you've taken the guitar fretboard lessons on this site so you'll know how intervals work on the fretboard, but let's recap specifically for the major scale...

The major scale starts with tone number 1 (the root note) and continues in intervals up to 7. The intervals are as follows...

W = whole step (or 2 fret interval)
H = half step (or 1 fret interval)

So if you were to start on the open low E string and played out the intervals of the major scale on just that one string, this is how they would appear (1 being the open, unfretted string)...

 
1 = the root note, and in this case the root note is E.

Therefore this would be the E major scale, since the root note (1) lies on the the note E. The rest of the scale is built from this point.

Once we get to note 7, the next note is the octave (sometimes labelled as 8 but really it's just 1 again) - the same as the root note, but higher. The scale sequence begins again an octave higher.

It's that typical "do-re-mi" scale we're all familiar with and it's what chords and other scales are built in relation to. So when we talk about a flat 5th (symbolised as "b5") in a chord or scale, we really mean "the 5th tone of the major scale flattened one half step from its original position". More on sharps and flats in another lesson.

Now, it's necessary to use more than one string most of the time. So you have to transfer these scale intervals across the 6 strings of your guitar.

The most commonly used (and seen) "boxed" scale pattern for the major scale is...

Remember, 1, the first note of the scale is the root note, so if you started the scale at the 3rd fret on the low E string, the 1st note would be G so it would be the G major scale. The root note defines the key of the scale, in other words.

You should learn that major scale pattern above to start with and learn the visual relationships and intervals between the tones 1-7.

For example:

• the second occurrence (octave) of the root note appears on the D string two frets above the 1st root note

• the third occurrence (even higher octave) of the root note appears on the high E string on the same fret as the 1st root note!

• the second occurrence (octave) of the 5th appears on the B string two frets below the 1st occurrence of the 5th note.

• the 3rd appears one fret left of the lowest root note on the A string AND a higher 3rd (octave) appears one fret left of the root's octave on the G string.

See if there are any other visual relationships you can pick out.

Once you've learned that boxed scale pattern you should move on to learning other positions of the major scale.

Other major scale guitar patterns/positions

Remember: these are all exactly the same major scale as above, with exactly the same relative intervals, they just use different areas of your guitar's fretboard and make use of different strings for the same intervals as a result.

As well as using these patterns for soloing, they can be seen as the scaffolding around which we build chord shapes.

You can shift these shapes/patterns up and down the fretboard (known as "movable" shapes/patterns) depending on the chord or key you're playing around.

So above we learned the E string root - "boxed" major scale...

E string root - descending

Used to construct chords around the G shape.

E string root - ascending

Used to construct chords around the E shape.

A string root - boxed

Used to construct chords around A shape.

So this time, same scale, same intervals but starting with the root on the A string.

A string root - descending

Used to construct chords around the C shape.

A string root - ascending

Used to construct chords around the A shape.

D string root - boxed

Used to construct chords around the D shape.

Again, same scale and intervals but starting on the D string (where even higher voiced, 4 string chords can be built from)...

D string root - descending

Can be used for constructing higher voiced, 4 string chords which have a D string root.

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Arrrgh! Making sense of it all!

At the beginning of this lesson I stated this wasn't only about lead guitar, but rather the theory behind building chord harmonies, which lead guitar does fall under. I want you to understand that chords and scales are pulled from the same pot of tones.

When you build a chord from a scale, you form a chord shape.

This is where the E, A, C, D and G chord shapes come from, and you can use the assigned scale shapes above to construct chords around these positions which in turn gives you several different chord voicings to experiment with.

For now though, just make sure you learn these major scale patterns. The same "shape" technique can be applied to other scales as and when you come to them.

Thanks for working through this - we've covered some good ground here :)

Hope to see you soon!

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