Guitar Theory: Major Scale

Guitar Theory: the Major Scale

All right let’s start with a left brained approach to the major scale. We’ll get the theory out of the way so we can get into some phrasing exercises and some reflections on how to use this thing we call the major scale.

major scale

Above you can see every major scale note on the fretboard. And unless you’ve spent a whole lot of time studying my lesson on Intervals, you probably haven’t mastered every note and every phrasing on it yet.

So what, right? How do we know what notes to pick out on the major scale? Every single major scale for every single key signature follows the same pattern:

W – W – H – W - W – W - H

Whole step - Whole step - Half step - Whole step - Whole step - Whole step - Half step

A step is the distance between 2 notes: half step = 1 fret whole step = 2 frets

On the guitar you can play a whole major scale up to the 12th fret and see the pattern on one string.

major scale

A very good idea would be to try to memorize or learn the major scale for each of the keys A through G. Below is a chart that shows every key’s major scale.

Scale	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th
A	B	C#	D	E	F#	G#
B	C#	D#	E	F#	G#	A#
C	D	E	F	G	A	B
D	E	F#	G	A	B	C#
E	F#	G#	A	B	C#	D#
F	G	A	Bb	C	D	E
G	A	B	C	D	E	F#

As you notice, C is the only major scale that has no sharps or flats: C D E F G A B

There are many ways to play the major scale, or many positions to play it in anyway. We’ll look at a couple here: static and dynamic.

Static positions are when we play the scale in one place at a time without running up the fretboard. Look below and you can see all of these positions for the C major scale.

major scale

Okay now that you can see the charts and where the notes fall on the fretboard, lets start in on some exercises. These exercises are to help remember the structure and the placement of the notes and to practice with a metronome to build clarity and speed. They’re not supposed to create interesting phrasing yet.

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Guitar Theory: the Major Scale