Major and Minor Scales on Guitar

When you start looking more into music theory, such as how chords are made, and starting wanting to learn more about how to write your own songs, or how to improvise on guitar; everything comes back to basic major and minor scales.

You can think of these scales as the ruler by which other scales are measured.

What Defines a Scale?

A scale is defined by it’s intervals. The name that we give a scale denotes the intervals within that scale (this will make more sense later).

An interval is the relative distance between two notes.

The major scale has a specific set of intervals. When we build those intervals from the note A, we create a scale of A major

The minor scale has its own set of intervals. When we build those intervals from the note Eb, we create a scale of Eb minor.

We’re going to look at basics of how these major and minor scales work, and how we can play them on guitar.

The Major Scale

The major scale has the following formula:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Nice and easy! Those numbers all represent different intervals from the root note (the root note is labelled as 1). Here are the intervals those numbers represent, and the distance, in frets, of those intervals on your guitar:

1 Root note

2 Major second (2 frets from root)

3 Major third (4 frets from root)

4 Perfect fourth (5 frets from root)

5 Perfect fifth (7 frets from root)

6 Major sixth (9 frets from root)

7 Major seventh (11 frets from root)

Rather than looking at the interval of each note from the root of the scale, we can also look at the interval between each note in the scale. When we look at the scale this way, we think in terms of tones (T, two frets) and semi-tones (s, one fret):

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8(1)
T	T	s	T	T	T	s

Example with a C major scale

Let’s take the root note as C, and work out the intervals from the C on fret 3 on the 5th string:

After we have found the frets that those intervals are on, we can then look at the notes on those frets:

So this tells us that the notes in a C major scale are:

C D E F G A B

Go back to the table showing the intervals in a major scale, and compare them to the notes on the fretboard.

An alternative way to work out major scales on guitar

Remember this table we had earlier:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8(1)
T	T	s	T	T	T	s

Let’s say that we wanted to work out a scale of G major. So we replace the ‘1’ in the table, with the note G:

G	2	3	4	5	6	7	8(1)
T	T	s	T	T	T	s

We want to work out what the second note in the scale is.

To find the second note, we have to go up a tone from G. Use your guitar to help you work this out. You can use any G note on the guitar neck.

One tone up from G, we get the note A. So we put that into the table:

G	A	3	4	5	6	7	8(1)
T	T	s	T	T	T	s

Note ‘3’ is a tone up from A. Again, using the guitar neck to work this out, we can see that B is a tone up from A:

G	A	B	4	5	6	7	8(1)
T	T	s	T	T	T	s

and so on. Keep going and work out the rest of the notes yourself.

Notes in a scale of G major:

G A B C D E F#

Exercise: Work out the notes in the following scales (check your answers at the end of the article):

• A major
• E major
• B major
• D major

How do we play a major scale on guitar?

Anytime we are playing those intervals from a root note, we are playing a major scale.

Anytime we are playing the notes C D E F G A B, we are playing a C major scale.

A great way to do this is using a three note per string pattern like this:

While the above diagram shows us all the information we need, when it comes to playing the scale, we actually have too much information. So we simplify the diagram by leaving the dots and removing the note names, like this:

These type of neck diagrams are very helpful for memorising scales.

The Minor Scale

There are several types of minor scale, but we are going to stick with what is known as the natural minor.

Intervals in a natural minor scale:

1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7

Here is a quick explanation of those intervals:

1 Root

2 Major second (2 frets from root)

b3 Minor third / flat third (3 frets from root)

4 Perfect fourth (5 frets from root)

5 Perfect fifth (7 frets from root)

b6 Minor sixth / flat sixth (9 frets from root)

b7 Minor seventh / flat seventh (11 frets from root)

Again, we can think about the minor scale in terms of the interval,  the tones and semi-tones, between each note in the scale, like this:

1	2	b3	4	5	b6	b7	8(1)
T	s	T	T	s	T	T

Example with an A minor scale

Let’s find these intervals along a single string, starting on the note A:

and if when then look at the notes that those intervals fall on:

So we can see that the notes in a one string scale of A minor are:

A B C D E F G

Working out the notes in a minor scale

Rather than using the above method of finding intervals from the root, I find it easier to work out the intervals note-to-note, like we did with the major scale.

Using this table:

1	2	b3	4	5	b6	b7	8(1)
T	s	T	T	s	T	T

Let’s walk through working out a scale of A minor using this table.

We start off by using the note A as the root note:

A	2	b3	4	5	b6	b7	8(1)
T	s	T	T	s	T	T

We then want to find the note that is a tone (2 frets) up from A. You can use your guitar to help you work this out.

That note is B:

A	B	b3	4	5	b6	b7	8(1)
T	s	T	T	s	T	T

Next, we need to find the note that is a semi-tone up from B. Which is C:

A	B	C	4	5	b6	b7	8(1)
T	s	T	T	s	T	T

Work out the rest yourself.

Answers (don’t look before you tried working it out!):

Notes in A minor: A B C D E F G

Exercise: Work out the notes in the following minor scales (answers are at the end of the article):

• E minor
• G minor
• C minor
• D minor

How do we play a minor scale on guitar?

Playing those notes up and down a single string is not very helpful. So, in order to make the step from theory, to something we can practically apply, we need to arrange those notes into something more helpful.

We can arrange the above notes (A B C D E F G) into a 3 note per string pattern like this:

We can turn this into a generic minor scale pattern, by removing the note names and marking the note ‘A’ as the root note, like this:

If this diagram is a bit overwhelming for you, use this process to learn scales.

Conclusion

So there you have it - a beginners guide to major and minor scales on guitar.

We worked through a lot of theory here, and while we worked out some practical shapes we can use to play these scales, we did not cover how to start using those scales.

If you want a practical guide on how to use these scales, you should check out my beginners guide to improvising. Replace the minor pentatonic scale in the guide with the major and minor scales that we cover here.

Answers

Major scales

A major: A B C# D E F# G#

E major: E F# G# A B C# D#

B major: B C# D# E F# G# A#

D major: D E F# G A B C#

Minor scales

E minor: E F# G A B C D

G minor: G A Bb C D Eb F

C minor: C D Eb F G A Bb

D minor: D E F G A Bb C