Guitar Lessons From Your Own Home
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Major Scale Basic Theory
The major scale is the foundation of all patterns and scale variations in western music theory. You may recognize the sound of the major scale as the notes sung in "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do". We refer to this set of eight notes as an octave of the major scale. It's called an octave because it includes eight (octa) notes in the pattern. Melodies based on the major scale are usually happier and brighter sounding.
What determines a major scale is the interval pattern made up of whole steps and half steps. Whole steps go up or down 2 frets and half steps go up or down to the next fret. The interval pattern for the major scale (all going up the frets) is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, half. In the key of C, we will start the interval pattern on C, our "root" note. We end up with the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. If you choose to play in a different key, you will end up with a different set of notes as determined by the whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half interval pattern starting from the note of the scale name. For example, if you go back to the
and trace this interval pattern from the note E, you end up with this set of notes: E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E. These are the notes included in the E major scale.
Here is the C major scale formed on one string. This diagram starts on the most commonly known C note (marked by a red "R", meaning "root") on the 3rd fret of the 5th string. Notice the intervals from each note to the next starting from the root and how it follows the pattern of whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half (whole step being two frets, half step being one) until it reaches the next octave of C
Now, let's try this same interval pattern with the root on C of the 6th string (8th fret of the 6th string). The pattern still remains the same except it's following from a different version of C higher up on the guitar but a string lower than our previous diagram. If you play them one after another, you'll notice they're the same exact sound.
Though we have figured out two ways to play the C major scale on the guitar so far, you may often need a way to play this scale more efficiently by creating as little movement between the notes as possible. Using the information on the , we can find the same notes necessary to form the major scale on other strings. C and D will still be on the 6th (low E) string, but E, F and G will instead be on the 5th (A) string and A, B and the next root C on the 4th (D) string.
Now that we've found the first octave (8 notes in the scale), we can use the again to continue up the higher three strings. This gives us our next D, E and F on the 3rd (G) string, G and A on the 2nd (B) string and B and our higher root C on the 1st (high E) string. Now we have a full two octave scale pattern that keeps your hand in the same position for more efficient playing with less movement. This major scale pattern is also often referred to as .
Once you've understood this major scale theory page, you can move on to: