Learning Guitar Scales

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Most of the music theory is build around the concept of scales, and most of scales are build in reference to the "Major scale", it is the first scale that you should learn because it plays the role of a parameter or reference to all other scales, so it's the constant of the music theory.

To begin learning guitar scales you should have a general view on "the notes on the guitar's fretboard", and the concept of the "whole and half steps".

The major scale have 7 notes (Doe, Re, Me, Fa, Sol, La, Ti). The standard formula of building the major scale is measured by the concept of "whole and half steps", so every major scale played on every key on the fretboard has the same formula which is (WH, WH, H, WH, WH, Wh, H).  "WH" stands for a whole step (2 frets on the guitar's fretboard), "H" stands for a half step (1 fret on the guitar's fretboard).

So let's take the example of the key of C (we set C as the first note or the root of the scale), the major scale will appear like this (C D E F G A B and back to the root note C).

The notes on the fretboard will look like this:

E---------------------------------------------------------------
B---------------------------------------------------------------
G--------------------------------------2---4---5-------------
D-----------------------2---3---5----------------------------
A-------------3---5-------------------------------------------
E--------------------------------------------------------------

So if we want our major scale to be in the key of G, (G A B C D E F# and back to the root note G).

E---------------------------------------------------------------
B---------------------------------------------------------------
G--------------------------------------------------------------
D--------------------------------2---4---5--------------------
A------------------2---3---5----------------------------------
E--------3---5------------------------------------------------

And the same pattern applies to every key note on the fretboard (WH, WH, H, WH, WH, Wh, H).

Notes:
1- In the previous examples, we've played the major scale using 3 string.
2- You can play it on the same string, but this is just for knowing the notes (you can't solo over one string...!!!).
3- We've used an average of 3 notes per string except the first string (we can play it 3 notes in the first string), and this is the best formula, because using this formula will make you a fast and accurate player.



The major scale is the major key in learning guitar scales, because every other scale goes back to the major scale, and this concept will help you a lot in constructing chords and writing songs.

Any questions, you're welcome.