The Major Scale on Guitar

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 in the theory section. It's 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 lesson is your first rewarding step to understanding how chords (and therefore, lead harmonies) are built around the major scale - the very basis of what we call modal and "western" music.

It's not difficult, it's just something you need to devote a little time to.

Major Scale Guitar Basics

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

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

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

The major scale starts with note number 1 and continues in intervals up to note 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 play the major scale starting on the open bottom E string and play just on that one string, you'd split the intervals like this ("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.

Once we get to note 7, the next note is the octave - the same as the root or note 1, but higher. The scale cycle begins again.

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

That's an important point actually - when we flatten a note half a step (1 fret) the symbol to represent this is a b (e.g. flatten the 9th and you get b9)

If you sharpen (move up one half step/fret) a note you get the # symbol (e.g. sharpen the 5th and you get #5)

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.

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 fret 5 on the fat E string, the 1st note would be A so it would be the A major scale.

You should learn that major scale pattern above to start with and learn the visual relationships and intervals between the notes.

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) 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 shape you should move on to learning other positions of the major scale - I call these ascending and descending shapes depending on which direction the scale travels on the fretboard.

Try to learn scale shapes wherever chord shapes may occur, as the two essentially draw from the same selection of notes.

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Other major scale shapes/positions

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

They are built around the different chord shapes (e.g. D shape barre, C shape barre etc.)

1 = root note for whatever key you're playing in (you can shift these shapes up and down the fretboard depending on the chord/key your 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.

I would also include the ascending D string major scale but when we build up chords from this shape, the fingerings become tighter (due to your index needing to fret that root note on the D string) so you will probably never need to ascend the scale beyond the original "boxed" position to construct a chord on the D string.

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Arrrgh! Making sense of it all!

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

When you build a chord harmony from a scale, you get 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 positions and shapes for the major scale.

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

Hope to see you soon!...

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