How To Understand Scales:

Do your eyes start to roll back in your head whenyou people start talking about scales and key signatures? Well, never fear. It’s actually a lot simpler than most people makeit. Here’s what I mean…

Scales are just notes put together in a certain way. And there areonly 8 note possibilities in any scale.

Let’s take C major for example. The notes in a C Major scale are C,D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
(Go grab your guitar, right now and try this. I promise it will make a lot more sense.)
If you played these notes on your guitar they would be:

E———————————–
B———————————–
G———————————–
D———————————–
A-3-5-7-8-10-12-14-15—————
E———————————–

Simple enough, right?

Now a scale is made up of whole steps and half steps.

A whole step would be 3 to 5 (you skip fret 4).

A half step is 7 to 8.

So, a C major scale played on the A string is:

3-5 (Whole step)
5-7 (Whole step)
7-8 (Half step)
8-10 (Whole step)
10-12 (Whole step)
12-14 (Whole step)
14-15 (Half step)

Now, here’s the beautiful thing: Once you memorize this formulaW, W, H, W, W, W, H you can play ANY major scale!

So if you want to play a D Major scale, you simply start on D andfollow the formula:

E———————————–
B———————————–
G———————————–
D-0-2-4-5-7-9-11-12—————–
A———————————–
E———————————–

Now, you can play these same notes anywhere on the fretboard, it’sall the same scale!

E———————————–
B———————————–
G————-6-7——————-
D——-5-7-9———————–
A-5-7-9—————————–
E———————————–

You can play this same scale here also:

E———————————–
B———————————–
G———————————–
D——————-11-12———–
A———-10-12-14—————–
E-10-12-14————————–

Now, notice that each scale above is made up of 8 notes. From E10to D12 is a “octave.” (”Oct” stands for eight. Remember, an octagonhas eight sides?)

If you wanted to play the D Majorscale in two octaves, it would look like this:

E————————–7-9-10—
B——————-7-8-10———-
G————-6-7-9—————–
D——-5-7-9———————–
A-5-7-9—————————–
E———————————–

So, now you know how to play a D Major scale in two octaves. But, guess what. If you can play a D Major scale, you can play ANY major scale!

All you’ve got to do is follow the formula I gave you:
Pick any note. Let’s say E, for example. Start on E, and then follow the W, W, H, W, W, W, H formula. In tab, it looks like this:

E———————————–
B———————————–
G———————————–
D———————————–
A———————————–
E-0-2-4-5-7-9-11-12—————–

Ok, now that you know how a Major scale is formed, you should go practice these. Find any note. Then follow the W, W, H, W, W, W, H formula to play the Major scale in that key.

Once you’ve got this down, fairly well, we can move on to the other scales that you’ll come across in guitar playing: Natural Minor,Melodic Minor and Harmonic Minor.

Then, once we’ve got those, we can go to chord structure. Then chord progressions. In part 7, we’ll move on to some chords that can be made from these notes in the Major scale.

So, make sure you practice this lesson before you start the next.
Music is a lot like math. Each concept builds on the previous. You can’t multiply 2 X 2 until you can add 2 + 2.

So, don’t put off practicing the concepts in this lesson.

Take care…

Cheers,

Dan Denley

About the Author: Dan Denley began playing guitar in 1989 at the age of 14. Mr. Denley is a self-taught guitarist and classically trained musician. After graduating with honors from the Scheidt School of Music (University of Memphis)with a bachelors degree in Music History, he created the “Amazing Guitar Secrets”course for learning guitar, which is considered by many to be complete and authoritative. You can learn more about how YOU can become one of his successful students at http://www.amazingguitarsecrets.com/special/3

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2006 at 4:29 pm and is filed under AmazingGuitarSecrets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.