The major scale is perhaps the most important scale you can learn as a fledgling guitar music theory student.  

First and foremost, the major scale is the basis of thousands of the most memorable melodies and songs you’ve ever heard, making it one of the most easily recognizable sequences of notes in music.

It’s that sound you learned as a young child. Remember “Do-Re’Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do”?

From a music theory standpoint, the major scale is like the measuring ruler of music.

It’s the basis upon which we identify intervals.  It’s how we analyze chords and other scales, and it is the starting point for a study of harmony and the creation of chords and keys.

There’s a lot!

So, in this first lesson I’ll be answering the following questions:

• What is the major scale?

• How do you play the major scale on guitar?

• What are the essential major scale guitar patterns?

• How do you practice the major scale on guitar?

What is the major scale?

Perhaps we should first define what a scale is. 

‘Scale’ is derived from the Latin word scala, meaning a ladder or staircase. 

A scale will not go beyond one octave and the notes it contains will be arranged in ascending order of pitch (low to high).

The major scale, like all scales, has a pre-defined number of notes and a specific distance between each of those notes on the guitar fretboard.

The major scale has seven notes (the eighth note is the starting note repeated one octave higher). 

The starting note of the scale is named the ‘tonic’ and from one note to the next we can expect a distance of either two frets (a ‘whole step’) or one fret (a ‘half step’).  

In the UK where I learned music, we refer to these as a ‘tone’ (whole-step) and ‘semitone’ (half-step).

The C major scale is always the best place to start.  The reason is that it contains no (potentially confusing) sharp or flat notes.  

You can play a C major scale by playing up the white keys of a piano from C to C.

The major scale sounds decidedly upbeat and happy.  The main characteristic of that happy sound is the distance between the tonic (C) and the third note of the scale (E).  More on that soon.

Tonic Vs. Root

‘Tonic’ refers to the note in a scale (C is the tonic of the C major scale). 

‘Root' refers to the note upon which we form a chord (C is the root of a C major chord). 

They are basically the same thing and are used interchangeably by guitar instructors.

How do you play the major scale on guitar?

Let’s map out the C major scale on string 2(B) from the 1st fret to see how the major scale looks on the guitar fretboard.

You see that there is a whole step between each of the notes, except between E-F and B-C.

Identifying the distances between each of the notes gives what is called the major scale formula.

The major scale formula is therefore as follows:

Whole Step - Whole Step - Half Step - Whole Step - Whole Step - Whole Step - Half Step

W - W - H - W - W - W - H

This formula is a sequence of whole steps and half steps that will allow you to play a major scale up and down a string from any note of your choosing.

The important thing to remember is that the first whole step occurs as you move from the first to the second notes of the scale.

Using that logic, here’s how to play an E major scale on string 1(E).

And here’s an A major scale on string 3(G).

Simply by following the scale formula you can play the sound of the major scale, even without any clue about the actual notes you’re playing (hint, not recommended!)

Memorizing the major scale formula

There are a couple of ways to effectively memorize the major scale formula.

The first is to label each note of the scale with its number in the sequence. Returning back to C major:

• C is 1

• D is 2

• E is 3

• F is 4

• G is 5

• A is 6

• B is 7

• C is 8 (one octave above)

The notes of the scale have been identified by their scale degree, denoting each note’s position in the scale and its distance from the tonic.

For example, E is the 3rd degree of the C major scale, two whole steps above the tonic.

Using the scale degrees, the easiest way to remember the formula is that the half step is always found between 3 to 4 and between 7 to 8.

Two tetrachords

If you group the first four notes of the scale together, the formula is W-W-H.  There is also a W-W-H sequence between the 5th and 8th notes of the scale.

The name for this sequence of four notes (separated by the sequence W-W-H) is a tetrachord.

The major scale has two tetrachords linked by a whole step.

So, to remember it quickly it’s:

“whole, whole, half…whole…whole, whole half”

For more on the tetrachord, check out my video lesson (below):

Rules of the major scale 

The major scale is a diatonic scale.

A ‘diatonic scale’ contains seven notes in succession, with each letter of the musical alphabet appearing in order (The 8th note being the octave of the tonic).

Within its formula, a diatonic scale will contain five whole steps and two half steps.

This is IMPORTANT…

Each letter of the musical alphabet must appear once, and only once!

The significance of this will become apparent as you start studying key signatures.

What are the essential major scale guitar patterns?

The first major scale guitar pattern that you should know inside out is the major scale on one string. 

Many guitarists tend to jump straight into vertical shapes across the strings but, if you put in the time playing on one string it immediately prevents any sense of being boxed into a scale pattern (a rut that many guitarists find themselves in).

Major scale on one string

As you play a scale you should name the notes as you play them.  If you haven’t yet studied key signatures and exactly how each note in the scale should be named, say the scale degrees instead.

Get comfortable with playing a scale up and down from the tonic, then try playing the scales from the lowest available note on the chosen string.

Remember that a scale is a set of notes that repeat across the entire guitar fretboard.  

So if you were working with the C major scale, you could play one octave of the notes from the scale from each of the open strings.

To ensure that you are hearing C major, you should play the scale along to a backing track. We discuss this more later on (see How do you practice the major scale? below).

One-octave vertical major scale guitar shapes

After mastering the horizontal major scale on one string, the next stage is to work vertically across the strings towards the floor.

There are three directions in which a vertical scale pattern can be orientated on the guitar fretboard:

• Backward (towards the guitar headstock)

• Straight Down (directly towards the floor)

• Forward (toward the guitar body)

From this point, I’ll be presenting the scale shapes without any specific tonic note. The scale patterns are numbered by the scale degrees to allow you to move the scale pattern to any note.

The shapes will always be the same, whichever note pitch you start on. This is the beauty of the guitar!

Each scale pattern can move downwards towards the floor across the string sets.

The thing to remember is that any grouping of notes that is moving from string 3(G) to 2(B) must be raised one fret to compensate for standard tuning.

In the opposite direction, any grouping of notes that is moving from string 2(B) to 3(G) must be lowered one fret.

Let’s check out how each scale pattern looks across the string sets.

Below each chart I’ll provide the recommended fingering for each scale shape.

Backward major scale pattern

Recommended fingering patterns:

‘Straight down’ scale pattern

Recommended fingering patterns:

‘Forward’ major scale pattern

Recommended fingering patterns:

‘Full range’ vertical major scale guitar patterns

There are two common approaches for grouping the notes of the scale into more manageable patterns across all the strings, namely:

• CAGED System

• 3 Note-Per-String

These scale patterns expand upon the one-octave shapes to give you all available notes within one playing position.

CAGED System Major Scale Guitar Patterns

The CAGED system divides the guitar fretboard into five distinct scale patterns.  These patterns are formed around moveable octave shapes of the tonic, which can be associated with the five open chords of C, A, G, E, and D, hence the moniker ‘CAGED system’.

Here are the five patterns of the major scale following traditional CAGED shapes.  Notice where the tonic and its octaves are in each pattern: 

3 Note-Per-String Major Scale Guitar Shapes

The 3 note per string approach divides the fretboard into seven scale patterns, starting from each of the seven major scale degrees.

As the name suggests, each scale pattern has 3 notes to every string:

How do you practice the major scale?

Give the scale some context

The first important thing is to work with some sort of backing track to ensure you are hearing the scale correctly as you play it.

To help develop your ear and the relationship between the different notes to the tonic, I would recommend working with a drone (which is a constant note). You will want this to be the tonic note or the major chord of the same name (for example a C major chord for studying the C major scale). 

Try and record it somehow and then play the scale over this drone to hear its bright and triumphant nature. 

Alternatively, you can find drone backing tracks on YouTube (search ‘C drone’).

For ease, here is a 10-minute drone of a C note that I made to help you as you explore the sound of the C major scale:

Say as you play  

I would recommend saying the major scale degrees as you play the notes to reinforce the visualization (and hopefully prevent you from getting lost).

Play the scale up and down

You inevitably have to start with playing a scale pattern up and down to get it programmed into your fretting hand and eyeballs! 

At this stage you should be focusing on good fretting technique with minimum movement, keeping the fingertips nice and close to the guitar fretboard.

Start and end upon the Root note and ensure that you are playing the full range of the particular scale pattern.  

Work with a metronome wherever possible and use learning the scale as an opportunity to work on your alternate picking technique. 

Use sequences

Once you’re confident with playing the scale up and down, you can move on to scale sequences.

There are two main types of sequence:

• Intervallic Sequences in which you go up and down the scale pattern through a specific interval.

• Number Sequence in which you play a certain number of notes from each note of the scale as you go up and down (like 3 in a row or 4 in a row).

For the full rundown on scale sequencing, you should check out this lesson:

Be creative

Lastly, and most importantly, don’t forget the main reason you’re learning the scale - to be making music!

Take some time to be creative with the scale. Try creating little melodic ideas, or see if you can pick out melodies you already know from the scale pattern.

For More

As a member of my Patreon group, you’ll get access to my Major Scale Study Guide in support of this lesson.

In it, I detail every pattern of the major scale that you’re ever likely to need!

In joining the group you’ll be helping to support more regular lessons just like this and get exclusive access to a vast library of lessons and resources from my content across YouTube and Instagram.

Find out more at patreon.com/rynaylorguitar

If you would like to study with me, you can do so via Zoom or as an enrolled student in one of my video courses. Recommended for this lesson is my course dedicated to the fundamentals of guitar music theory, Guitar Rut Busters: Essential Theory.