Welcome to our guide on major scales for guitar. Major scales are a foundational skill in all styles of music, and they’re absolutely essential if you want to be able to play jazz guitar.
Major scales are your main source for understanding music theory, creating melodies, understanding chord progressions, and improvising.
Let’s take a look at how to play major scales on your guitar using a logical set of finger patterns that will serve you well for years to come.
Get the “Quick and Dirty” Jazz Guitar Lesson: 5 Essential Major Scale Shapes for Jazz Guitar.
Understanding Major Scales for Guitar
Major scales consist of seven different notes, following a specific pattern of whole and half steps.
In guitar player terms, you can visualize a whole step as two frets on a single guitar string, while a half step is one fret.
The pattern is as follows: Whole – Whole – Half – Whole – Whole – Whole – Half.
Let’s take a look at the C Major scale as an example, and build it on the 2nd string of your guitar.
The C Major scale includes the following notes: C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C. You can see that this follows the pattern of whole and half steps we mentioned:
- C to D is a whole step
- D to E is another whole step
- E to F is a half step
- F to G is a whole step
- G to A is another whole step
- A to B is also a whole step
- And finally, B to C is a half step
With this understanding, you can construct a major scale starting on any note, on any string by following the same whole and half step pattern.
For playing purposes, it can be helpful to think of these scale notes by number, rather than thinking about the letter name or whether you’re moving by half-step or whole-step. We call this labeling system scale tones or intervals.
Here is the same C major scale in numbers, with the root note C marked in red:
Compare this diagram to the diagram above showing note names.
- C = 1
- D = 2
- E = 3
- F = 4
- G = 5
- A = 6
- B = 7
The big benefit to thinking in scale tones is this: when you change keys, all of the letter names change, but the numbers stay the same. You’re always playing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.
So as long as you start on the right note, you’ve always got the right scale under your fingers… as long as you keep the pattern right.
In the next section, we’ll show you how to apply this to the guitar fretboard.
The Major Scale on Your Guitar
To make the major scale practical for guitar playing, we can’t just rely on one string at a time. There are common finger patterns that guitar players have used for years to put this scale directly onto the fretboard, with as convenient a finger pattern as possible.
To illustrate this, let’s play a G Major scale:
In the diagrams above, the numbers on the left hand side are my suggested finger pattern to keep things easy.
The diagram on the right shows the scale tones, or intervals of the scale. This is my preferred way of thinking about all of our major scale patterns.
Major Scale Shapes for Guitar
Major scales can be played in different “patterns” or “shapes” on the neck of the guitar.
These are often referred to as scale patterns and while there are slight variations taught by different teachers, the most common approach involves 5 different scale patterns.
These patterns can be used to play in a single key all over the guitar neck, and they can also be used to quickly adjust to key changes without moving your hand more than a fret or two.
The way I teach them, we have a pattern that starts on the 6th string, 5th string, 4th string, 3rd string, and 2nd string.
With the basic scale patterns below, pay extra attention to the practice examples in TAB and notation.
The way I have my students practice this is a little different than what you might have done in the past, but it really helps keep the scale patterns separated in your head, and lets you get the most out of your muscle memory as you practice.
Here are the basic major scale patterns you need to know:
6th String Scale Shape
5th String Scale Shape
4th String Scale Shape
3rd String Scale Shape
2nd String Scale Shape
Get downloadable PDF files and instructions here.
Why Learn your Major Scales?
There are a lot of benefits you will get from really learning your major scales on guitar. Major scales will help you develop your technique and connect your ears to the notes on your fretboard.
The major scale is your primary starting point for learning melodies and improvising in major keys… whether you are playing jazz or any other style of music.
A solid understanding of these scales can help you understand how chords are built, and navigate soloing through chord progressions. They even give you everything you need to understand how modes work in jazz improvisation and composition.
Practical Tips and Exercises
Here are some tips for practicing major scales:
- Always start out slow with new scale patterns… get it comfortable first and speed will come later.
- Use a metronome to develop timing and keep yourself honest.
- Practice each scale pattern in different keys to get more familiar with the notes on the fretboard.
- Try improvising simple melodies or solos using the major scale.
Conclusion
Learning major scales for guitar is an important part of becoming a good jazz guitarist. These scales and patterns are your building blocks for musical expression, technique development, and understanding music theory.
Get all the finger patterns you need with our complete guide to jazz guitar scales. It’s free!
Do you know all 5 major scale shapes? Let me know in the comments below.