The Major Scale for Guitar - The Basis of Western Music Theory

Understanding the major guitar scale and how it is constructed is the first step in understanding western music theory. Chords, modes and other scales will almost always have a direct relationship to the major scale. Once you learn the major scale you will quickly be able to understand how chords are built and where the seven different modes of the major scale come from.

Major Guitar Scale Basics

The major scale is a seven note scale and is sometimes called the Ionian mode. It is made up of a series of intervals that have a specific relationship to one another.

What is an interval?

An interval is the distance between two notes. For example on your guitar the distance between the 1st and 2nd frets is considered to be a half step. Likewise the distance between the 1st and 3rd frets is a whole step.

The major scale is made up of a series of whole and half steps in the following pattern:

W W H W W W H

To further illustrate let's take the C major scale. The notes in a C major scale are:

C D E F G A B

If we now take the notes and the interval make up we get this:

C(w) D(w) E(h) F(w) G(w) A(w) B(h) C

The second C at the end is an octave at which point the cycle repeats itself.

Many people use numbers to identify the different tones in the major scale. Since there are seven different notes in the major scale they are numbered 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 accordingly. Compare this to the C major scale and you have the following:

C(1) D(2) E(3) F(4) G(5) A(6) B(7)

This is important to understand because when you begin to study other scales and chords they will refer to these numbers as being either flatted or sharped. For example if you saw something like 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 this would mean that you would need to flat the 3rd, 6th and 7th scale degrees of the major scale. So the notes in the C major scale would end up being C D E-flat F G A-flat B-flat and the name of this new scale is actually the natural minor scale.

If you do not understand it yet don't worry. It's a lot to wrap your head around the first time. Just make sure that you understand that their are seven notes in the major scale and that they are numbered 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 respectively. Also memorize the W W H W W W H interval make-up. You will better understand the rest when you learn other scales and modes.

Major Guitar Scale Patterns

To see how the major scale works across all six strings of the guitar here are a few different fingering patterns for the C major scale with the root on the 6th string 8th fret. I have numbered the notes in the scale as we discussed above.

1 |--7--|--1--|------|------|
2 |-----|--5--|------|--6--|
3 |--2--|-----|--3--|--4--|
4 |--6--|-----|--7--|--1--|
5 |--3--|--4--|-----|--5--|
6 |-----|--1---|-----|--2--|


1 |--6--|------|--7--|--1--|------|
2 |--3--|--4--|------|--5--|------|
3 |--1--|------|--2--|------|------|
4 |--5--|------|--6--|------|--7--|
5 |--2--|------|--3--|--4--|------|
6 |-----|------|------|--1---|------|


1 |------|------|--2--|-----|--3--|--4--|
2 |------|------|--6--|-----|--7--|--1--|
3 |------|--3--|--4--|-----|--5--|------|
4 |------|--7--|--1--|-----|--2--|------|
5 |--4--|------|--5--|-----|--6--|------|
6 |--1--|------|--2--|-----|--3--|------|