While the scale positions above cover two octaves, they can also be broken into single octave patterns. Going from the root note on strings 3 through 6, you can create the following scale patterns. Starting with the root on the 6th string, there are four common scale patterns. With the root note on the 5th string, you get the following common patterns for the major scale. Note that these are almost identical in shape as the patterns from the 6th string root. On the 4th string the patterns change a bit more to compensate for the tuning of the 3rd string.
Still, you should see the similarities between these patterns and the previous. To summarize, a music scale is a group of notes arranged sequentially by pitch and played individually. The major scale is a diatonic scale consisting of 7 notes and and octave note. Since so many other musical concepts and theory are derived from it, the major scale is the most important scale for a guitarist to know.
Learning it sets the foundation for applying music theory to the guitar, so take your time to thoroughly understand the content in this lesson. Further your knowledge of the major scale with the Major Scale Lesson Pack , which includes an expanded lesson workbook and page practice guide.
Learn More. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please see our privacy policy. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. A pentatonic scale is a popular five-note scale that you'll need to know for riffs, solos and melodies, especially for rock and blues.
For the A minor pentatonic scale, it's a snap to learn in two octaves in the fifth position, and it helps you with your fret-hand strength. Learn to play the A minor pentatonic scale. Getting down the C major scale will help you understand the key of C, and because it doesn't have any sharps or flats, it's a great entryway into musical composition.
You can actually play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" using this method! While that is a good way to understand the C major scale , it's more commonly played in open position across multiple strings to get the notes.
The Natural Minor Scale looks like this:. These notes are from the start of the next octave. I use all of these notes because they all sound good. This is only a little bit different to the Natural Minor Scale. Here we sharpen the penultimate note to make the pull back to the root note stronger. So we add an extra note to smooth the ascension.
It looks like this:. Unless you want to learn jazz this is a pretty niche scale. These two scales are fundamental and you need to be aware of them, but most intermediate guitarists play these two scales in a simpler and abridged form. So instead of playing the full major scale pattern like this:. The Major Scale. The Major Pentatonic Scale. Can you see that we simply removed two notes from each octave?
I often see guitar learners make the mistake of thinking the Major Scale is a totally different scale to the Major Pentatonic Scale. The Natural Minor Scale. The Minor Pentatonic Scale. You just need to get accustomed to leaving those two notes out in each octave. Box 1 of the Major Pentatonic Scale looks like this:. You can easily search YouTube for backing tracks.
Scale practice can sometimes feel very monotonous, but when you use backing tracks, you can turn scale practice into a kind of jam session. You can spend time simply playing through the chosen scale itself, and you can mix that up with free improvisation within the scale.
This is where licks come in. A lick is simply a short, musical phrase, usually based on a particular scale. Think of it like a musical sentence. For example, here is an E minor blues scale played over one octave. Learning licks on the guitar is like learning phrases in a foreign language. While learning grammar and singular words is important, real conversation happens when you put it together in full sentences.
The same goes with improvising. We can and should learn scales, but we can turn these scales in to meaningful music, by learning licks. Both of these processes are an essential part of developing fluency with a scale.
The easiest place to start is to learn licks that have already been created by someone else. You can find licks in books, or on the internet.
Alternatively, you can simply listen to a guitar solo that you like, and transcribe the licks that you hear within a solo. The A minor blues scale is one of the most used scales for guitarists. It works well over the A minor chord and as the name suggests, has a bluesy sound. You should try playing these licks. Once you have learnt some licks for the scale that you are working on, you should go back to your one-chord vamp and practise using the licks while improvising.
Remember, to get the most out of the licks, you need to experiment with them. Creating your own licks, based on notes from a scale that you are working on is an important and valuable process.
By deliberately crafting musical phrases, you are developing your creative skills as a musician and guitarist. The other benefit to creating your own licks, is that it gives you more material to work with. It sounds simple, but the more licks you compose for a given scale, the more fluent you will be with that scale, when soloing. This is a topic that could be expanded upon immensely. As we discussed earlier, when looking at CAGED, you should learn each scale in five different positions.
That means you should also learn licks for each of the five positions of a given scale. You can also use licks to help move from one position to another. One way that you can develop this ability is to learn licks that transition from one shape to another, like the following:.
We could explore the concept of licks and improvisation much further. There will be links at the end of this lesson to some related topics. For example, the Major scale is a scale you can use over Major chords. The minor pentatonic scale works well over minor chords.
You could simply dive into the scale library and start playing scales every spare minute of the day. The Major scale is the master scale, from which all other scales can be derived. If you become really familiar with Major scales, you can figure out every other scale by modifying the Major scale.
The notes that are in the Major scale tell us the notes that are in a given key. For example, the notes in the C Major scale are…. Major scale notes give you the notes in a key.
For this reason alone, you should become familiar with Major scales and the notes in each one. There are only twelve to learn not including enharmonically equivalent scales — for example Ab is the same as G. Because Major scales are so important, we actually use them as a reference point, when discussing other scales. Earlier, we looked at the natural minor scale, based on its interval sequence.
So the same thing could be written like this. As you may have guessed, this tells us how to play the natural minor scale, using the Major scale as a reference point. The F Major scale contains the following notes:. Therefore, the F natural minor scale contains the following notes:. This is an interesting example, because none of the notes of the Major scale are altered, but only some of the notes of the original Major scale are included.
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