Articles - Guitar / Music Theory

There are basically 5 pattern you can memorize for playing major scale on the guitar, using this 5 pattern you can play in any key, you just have to shift it a few fret down or a few fret up. We will discuss this later, let's just take a look at the 5 different pattern first. The reason why guitarist choose to use pattern is because it is much easier to remember, than trying to remember all the notes on the fretboard.

An example of all the G major scales notes on the guitar fretboard shown below. Doesn't it look complicated?

Guitarist are simple creature. To simplify things, we remember just 5 pattern which are actually taken out from the above diagram.

We will look at all the 5 patterns in G major scale

Pattern 1 (in G major scale)

Pattern 2 (in G major scale)

Pattern 3 (in G major scale)

Pattern 4 (in G major scale)

Pattern 5 (in G major scale)

Why don't we continue with the rest of the fret on the guitar and just stop here? It is because anything 12 fret apart on the guitar is just one octave higher, therefore the pattern 1 would have repeated itself starting from the 14 fret(2 fret + 12 fret)

So now that we know how to play G major scale through out the fretboard, how about other major scale?

You simply shift the whole pattern according to how many semi-tone away are the other major scale. For eg.  major scale is 2 semi-tone below G major scale. You simply shift the pattern 2 fret toward the neck, 2 fret lower. So pattern 2 for F major scale will be -

Pattern 2 (in F major scale)

This is easy, right? The pattern remains exactly the same, it just start on the 3rd fret instead of the 5th fret, because F key is 2 semi-tone lower than G key. Everything reduce by fret. The same goes for other key, just need to know how many semi-tone away. Another eg. C key.

Looking at the chromatic scale, G -> Ab -> A -> Bb -> B ->  C. So it's 5 semi-tone away. Take the G major scale pattern, everything goes up by 5 fret. Let's use pattern 1 this time. Again the pattern is exactly the same, just shifted to start at the 7th fret instead.

Pattern 1 (in C major scale)

Effective way to play major scale

The most effective way to play the scale is to assign each finger to each fret, look at the G major scale pattern 1 below. The pattern spread into 4 different fret, you use your index(1) finger to play any note on the 2nd fret, use middle(2) finger to play any note on the 3rd fret, use ring(3) finger to play any note on the 4th fret, and last use your last (4) finger to play any note on the 5th fret. All examples shown below.

Giving every finger a number, we can see how it works in the examples below.
Index Finger   = 1
Middle Finger = 2
Ring Finger     = 3
Last Finger     = 4

Pattern 1 (in G major scale)

Pattern 2 (in G major scale)

Pattern 3 (in G major scale)

Pattern 4 (in G major scale)

Pattern 5 (in G major scale)

So why do we need to know this? What is the advantage?

For one, you can now play the melody line of the song effectively, and of course major scale are the first building block to you doing a wonderful solo and improvisation.

Just in case you are wondering, if the song is in D key, you use D major scale; if the song is in F key, you use F major scale. Although this can change sometime because sometime guitarist wants a distinct sound.; but for now, let's just accept it as so.

Note: Please read major scale article before this.

By Wui-Ping