Guitar Scales and Patterns

Guitar scales are one of the foundational tools of any guitar player. They are useful for learning new chords, creating melodies, and improvising. In this article, we will be covering some of the most common scale shapes and patterns that you can use on your fretboard to create new sounds.

A guitar scale is a set of notes played in order that makes up a particular tonality (or key). When a guitarist is referring to a scale they are usually talking about a major, minor or pentatonic scale. The most basic of these is the minor pentatonic scale which most beginning students begin with. It is easy to learn and goes with almost any chord progression.

The next of the essential scales is the major scale. This can be more complicated to learn as it has more notes than the minor pentatonic or the minor scale. However once mastered the major scale is extremely useful for creating riffs and solos.

Like the minor scale, the major scale has many different scale patterns that you can use on your fretboard. When learning a scale it is important to try and master the pattern that goes with your root note. This will help you to easily move up and down the scales in other keys.

Scale patterns are simply numerical rearrangements of the notes in a particular scale. They can be very difficult to memorize at first, but once you get the hang of them it is a lot easier to understand and apply. A great way to practice a scale pattern is to play it with a song that you know has the same chord progression. This will allow you to see if the scale fits well with the chord progression or not.

You can also find scale patterns by looking at the fretboard and seeing which string each scale begins on. This is especially useful if you are only playing one string at a time as it will help you to quickly figure out which scale to apply to a specific string.

Lastly, you can also look at a guitar fretboard diagram to find out which scale pattern goes with any given string. Most scale diagrams will have 6 horizontal lines (depending on the shape of the scale) that represent the strings, with bass notes on the bottom and treble notes at the top. They will usually have a number on the left hand side that represents the string that the scale starts on and another on the right side of the diagram that indicates which fret it begins on.

In most cases a scale that starts on the fifth string will have a flattened 5th note, this is what gives the blues scale its unique sound. When using the blues scale it is often best to save it for more mellow moments in a song as it can be a bit too much of a power-chord-like sound for some styles of music.