Guitar lessons for beginners and more
How are the scales coming? This week we pass the half way point of our journey to learn all major scale positions across the fretboard in all twelve keys. If you’re jumping into this lesson mid-ways through, you might want to consider starting at the beginning with learning your C major scale positions.
So far, we’ve covered:
This week we’re going to look at the A major scale.
We’re on a journey to learn all major guitar scale positions in all twelve keys on the guitar fretboard. Seem impossible? It’s not really that hard if you start at the beginning with your C major scale positions and go from there.
Again, we’re not running a sprint here, but rather, a marathon. If you dedicate yourself each week and practice hard, you can tackle one lesson per week. So far we’ve covered:
This week we’re going to look at the Eb major scale. Let’s do this.
So, how are the scales coming? By now, you should know four scales all across the fretboard: C major, F major, G major, and Bb major.
For those of you just tuning in, we’re on a journey right now towards mastering the fretboard. Each part builds on the other, so if you want to get started, start here with learning your C major guitar scales.
This week we’re going to look at D major. You ready?
Right now, we’re on a journey towards mastering the guitar fretboard. The goal is to learn all twelve major keys in all five scale positions across the fretboard. So far, we’ve covered C major, F major, and G major.
Each of these guitar scale lessons build on the previous week, so if you haven’t checked those out then you want to start with learning your C major scales.
This week we’re going to look at Bb major.
The past couple weeks we learned our C major scale in all five scale positions up and down the fretboard. This enabled us to also learn the F major scale in all five scale positions, because all we had to do was change the “B” notes in the C major scale to “Bb” notes for [...]
For the next several weeks, we will be learning our major scales up and down the fretboard in all five positions and in all twelve major keys. Seem like an impossible task? Don’t worry. It’s not so bad, but in case you missed it, you will most definitely want to take a look at the introduction to the major guitar scales method we’re using to do this, and you might want to read up on the music theory for major scales.
The beauty about learning our major guitar scales with this method is that it not only teaches us the scale patterns but it inevitably teaches us the theory behind each major scale and the individual notes of each scales and how they interact and relate to one another. If we know how the notes interact with one another on the fretboard, we can begin to start crafting some interesting melodies and solos.
This week we are going to learn the F major scale.
When I studied guitar at university, I learned one of the most foundational methods for learning the guitar fretboard and learning a variety of guitar scales up and down the fretboard. You can learn this too. You’ll just need some time and a bit of dedication.
Before we get started, I want to draw attention to our recent post on music theory for major guitar scales, which will be essential for understanding this lesson. Once you’ve read that, come back and continue.
In the previous mentioned lesson on music theory for major scales, we learned that a C major scale has no sharps or flats, and we learned how to construct major scales in other keys by modifying the C major scale. Knowing this basic theory is crucial, and we can use it to learn any scale on the guitar fretboard by starting with the C major scale.
Because of this, we are going to learn the C major scale in all positions over the fretboard to provide a basis for learning every other guitar scale out there. Again, I learned this method my first semester of taking guitar in university and attribute it to giving me a comfortable grasp of the entire fretboard.
I’ve talked before about the music theory behind guitar scales some, but for this guitar lesson, I want to back up just a bit.
In that lesson, we learned that a scale is simply a group of notes (pitches) arranged in ascending and descending order. There are different types of scales: major, pentatonic, melodic minor, harmonic minor, whole tone, etc. We’re not going to get into the differences between each one in this lesson, but we are going to look explicitly at the major scale. Most of the music we hear on the radio is based on the major scale, so if we know the major scale, this will give us a huge foundation from which we’ll learn other things in the future.
Before we talk more about the major scale, we need to know about half steps and whole steps. All of the pitches (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) are separated by whole steps except that E to F and B to C are separated by half steps.
If you start on the 1st fret of the low E string, which is an F note, and move up one fret to the 2nd fret of the low E string, which is an F#, you’ve moved up one half step. If you were to move up two frets, you would have moved up a whole step. A whole step equals two half steps. [...]
Learning guitar scales is one of the best ways to start learning how to solo and improvise over the guitar fretboard. In this guitar lesson, we will not only learn two guitar scales: major and pentatonic, but we’ll also learn when to use these scales and when not to use them.
In a previous lesson, we learned the theory behind a major scale. We learned exactly what makes a major scale a major scale and how to build a major scale from any starting note. For this lesson, let’s look at the C major scale on the guitar fretboard. [...]
My name is Brett and I'm a musician, songwriter, and a bit of a web geek. I love helping others learn and grow as musicians. My hope is that Guitar Friendly would be a website that helps you become a better guitar player.
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