Why learn the major scale as a first lead guitar scale?
Some guitar teaching methods will first show you how to play a scale called the pentatonic scale. This is a scale made up of five notes instead of the seven notes used in the major scale.
The major scale contains the notes of the pentatonic scale, plus 2 extra, so by learning the full scale you essentially have both.
The entire western music system is based around the notes in the C major scale. The scale of C is our best indicator of the note intervals in a major scale, seeing as it's all the white notes on a piano or keyboard.
On the piano there are two places where a white note isn't followed by a black note, which is between E and F, and between B and C.
Working out the major scale on guitar.
The real beauty of lead guitar scale patterns is that they're movable. Pianists don't fully realize this, and the general public is clueless, so when you learn to play the major scale on guitar, and you're speeding back and forth as if you've memorized every single note for every different key on the guitar... well, you haven't.
You don't need to.
All you need to know are five different scale patterns. The easiest place to start is with the C major scale, seeing as there are no sharps or flats to worry about.
If your guitar is tuned to standard tuning, you've got the note names for all six open strings. You also know that between E and F and between B and C is only one fret distance.
C major scale in the first position of the guitar.
Playing from the 6th string (Thickest one) which is E, we then play F at the first fret, and G at the 3rd fret. The next note we need is an A, so that's the 5th open string.
From A to B is also a whole tone (2 frets apart), so we then play B at the second fret on the 5th string.
Because there's no sharp note between B and C they're a semitone apart (1 fret apart), so we play C at the 3rd fret on the sixth string.
The next note we're looking for is a D, so that's the 4th open string, and so on.
I guess you can see now how easy it is to work out and learn the major scale on guitar. You can easily work out the rest of the first position of the C major scale on the rest of the strings.
Playing lead guitar in a different key.
To play lead guitar in the key of D major, for example, we know that from C to D is a whole tone apart, so we use the C major pattern, but we move it along 2 frets so that every note is played a whole tone higher.
The pattern looks the same, it's just played in a different position. The same principle applies when changing to any major key.
There are 5 distinct lead guitar scale patterns in the major scale, each one building on the previous one as you progress higher in pitch up the fretboard.
Seeing as we started here with the C major scale, I suppose you may be wondering about the minor scale.
The minor scale fits into the major scale, with the only difference being that it starts on a different note.
The minor scale explained.
To play the minor scale you don't need to learn any new scale patterns, provided you've worked out all 5 major scale patterns.
If you've learned to play the C major scale, you've also learned how to play the A minor scale.
A minor is called the relative minor of C major. To find the relative minor of a major scale or chord, you look for the note that's a tone and a half back, or lower in pitch from the major.
So if you're in the key of C and you start playing from the A note, you're playing an A minor scale.
The best lead guitar scale pattern for playing in A minor, is the 3rd scale pattern of C major, which starts at the 5th fret.
Andrew Webber is a full time guitarist and music arranger.
