What Scales Are and How They Are Built
- How the fretboard is set up
- What Scales Are and How They're Built
- Best Scales for Popular Music
- The Five Pattern System
- Soloing Over Chords
- Playing Scales in Different Keys
(You’re currently reading Step 2 of 6)
Welcome to Step 2 of My favorite way to help my students get started understanding and using guitar scales!
First off, we need to know exactly what we are dealing with. To break it down as simply as possible…
…a scale is a group of notes played, usually in order by pitch, one after another that sound good together. You could say that they ”match” each other.
You will usually hear scales practiced from lowest to highest note (or the reverse highest to lowest note). Although scales may be practiced that way, that is not the way they sound the best.
In melodies, guitar solos, bass lines and counter melodies, scales tend to jump around between notes. If a melody just traveled up and down the scale, it wouldn’t sound very pleasing to the ear.
Scales are different than chords.
The group of notes in a scale are meant to be played one after another. This is different than chords. While chords, like scales use a group of notes that match each other, Chord notes are designed to be heard all at the same time.
If you are unfamiliar with or are interested in learning more about chords, I have a whole article on understanding what chords are and how they are constructed.
It is a companion article to this one and you can find it here:
==>>How to build chords and arpeggios on guitar
Chords and scales need each other. Generally, the rhythm instrument(s) that play the chords support the instrument(s) that play the melody (scales). The chord players set the tonal center and the melody player plays a scale that matches the chords.
How are scales built
Not all notes sound good together. There are reasons why certain groups of notes “match” each other. There are also reasons why different scales have different sounds and functions
The best way to understand how scales are built, is to jump right in and start building! Lets build a C Major scale all on one string.
Grab your guitar and lets Go!
- To build our first scale, we will start with the note C. Go ahead and play this note on the 3rd fret of the A string on the guitar.This will be our “tonic” note (The strongest note of a scale that also determines what key you are are playing). We will also give this note the number: 1.
- Next, slide up to the 5th fret (2 higher) on the same string and play that note. It is a D and we will give this note the number 2.
- Next, slide up to the 7th fret. This note is an E and we will give it the number 3.
- This time only slide up one fret to the 8th fret. This note is an F and we will give it the number 4.
- Slide up 2 more frets to the 10th fret. This is a G and we will give it the number 5……………Stay with me… only 3 more notes to go!
- Slide up 2 more frets to the 12th fret. This is an A and we will call it number 6
- Slide up 2 more to the 14th. This is a B and we will call it number 7.
- And last but not least, we will slide up 1 fret to the 15th. This is a C. The same note we started from. Just an octave higher. We will give this the number 1 again.
-
What do you think? Sound familiar? What you just built is a C major scale. Most people recognize this as the “Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do” song from vocal warm ups or from the song in “The Sound of Music”.
How did we do this? We had a starting note and then continued, in order, by sliding up either 1 fret or 2 frets to the next note in the scale.
Knowing when to use either the distance of 1 fret or 2 is the trick to being able to make a good sounding scale. To know which one to use. We need to understand something called intervals.
What is an Interval in music? (half steps and whole steps)
An interval is very simple.
It is the distance between two notes. There are lots of different intervals with different sounds and distances. They all have different names that relate to the sound they make.
For our purposes today, we will concentrate on only two intervals. The two intervals we are going to need to build this scale are the:
Major 2nd and the minor 2nd.
The interval of a Major 2nd on the guitar is the space of a 2 frets (commonly called a whole step).
The interval of a minor 2nd on the guitar is the space of 1 fret (commonly called a half step).
Notice that when we built the C Major scale above, we only moved either 1 or 2 frets between notes. Those are our half steps and whole steps.
Different scales have different combinations of half steps and whole steps. That is what gives each of them their unique sound.
In my next post, we will find out the different combinations of half steps and whole steps that make up the scales we need to play the music we want.
(If you are interested getting more in depth about intervals, stay tuned for my upcoming article all about intervals and how they relate to the guitar.)
Step 3: Know the best scales to learn for your style of music
There are LOTS of different scales. In my journey with the guitar I have learned many different ones.
From time to time I use all of the scales I have learned, but, I have found that I generally use certain scales for certain styles of music.
Today I am going to focus on the scales that are used the most for popular music:
- Rock,
- Hard Rock,
- Country,
- Blues,
- Southern Rock,
- Pop,
- Soul,
- R&B etc…
I plan several articles on the best scales for other types of music. I will link to them here when They are completed.
What are the best guitar scales to learn for popular music?
When I’m playing or teaching popular music, I always focus on the Big Four:
- Major
- Natural Minor
- Major Pentatonic
- Minor Pentatonic
If you have listened to any popular music, you are familiar with the sounds of these scales.
The Major scale is a happy sounding scale. Most people relate the sound of this scale to the “Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do” song.
The Natural Minor scale is the most common scale to play to get sad sounds. It is also used in a lot of hard rock songs.
The Major Pentatonic scale is a slimmed down Major scale. It is used in Country, Southern Rock, Soul music, and some blues.
The Minor Pentatonic is a slimmed down Natural minor scale. It is used primarily in Blues and Rock music.
Being comfortable and confident all over the neck of the guitar with the big four will give you most of what you need to play lead guitar in popular music.
But not only that! Knowing these scales can also help you with reading music, songwriting, creating and learning vocal melodies, vocal harmonies and bass lines
Make sure you check out Part 3. That’s where I go, in depth, through each of the “Big Four”.
We breakdown each of these scales and find out:
- what they sound like
- how they are constructed
- and when you should use them
Another great page that can give you a solid start with scales is Justin Sandercoe’s Scales Index page. I highly recommend taking a look through his scale basics and commonly used scale pages.
==>> Justin Guitar Scales Index Page
Thanks for reading part one of my Six step guide for the best way to learn guitar scales!
Someone once said that “a little knowledge can go a long way”. This is very true when it comes to learning scales on the guitar.
Just memorizing a few scale patterns doesn’t give you the whole picture.
The information in this, and the next few posts, will fill in the essential information that you need to use these scales effectively in your own music!
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