Want to know about major scale patterns? You’re in the right place!
In this free guitar lesson you will learn:
- 5 of the best major scale patterns.
- 4 bonus scale patterns to help take your playing to the next level.
- How to use major scale patterns to play killer solos and riffs.
- How to use major scale patterns to play in any key.
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What is the major scale?
The major scale is basically all the notes in a certain major key arranged into a handy pattern.
It’s an absolute must for any guitarist.
Major scale patterns for beginners: Open position patterns
The best major scale patterns to start off with are the basic open position patterns.
These are the patterns that use open strings as well as fretted notes.
We’re going to look at open position major scale patterns in the keys of: C A G E and D.
C major scale (open position)
Of all the major scale patterns, this is the ideal one to start off with.
Here’s the tab:
Not sure how to read tab? Fear not! Check out this article: How To Read Guitar Tabs
Here’s what this scale should sound like:
When playing major scale patterns, it’s important to use the correct fingers.
With this pattern we want to start with our third finger (the ring finger) playing the 5th string at the 3rd fret.
For any of the notes in the 2nd fret, we want to use our second finger (the middle finger).
For any notes in the 1st fret, use the first finger (the index finger).
Don’t just hop about using any old finger. This is a bad habit to form.
Have a few goes at this pattern until you feel happy and confident with it.
Try it slowly to begin with. Rushing through major scale patterns means you won’t learn them properly.
If you want to play something fast, first you’ve got to be able to play it slowly.
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Bonus Picking Tips
Don’t just use downstrokes. Try and alternate between down and up strokes with your pick. This will make your playing more fluid.
To learn more about picking techniques, check out these articles:
Download our lead guitar cheat-sheet to make things easier
It can be disorientating for guitarists to understand which scales work with which keys.
With this in mind, we created a cheat-sheet; a key and scale-finder that you can use again and again. Click here to download your copy.
A major scale (open position)
Here’s the tab:
Much like the previous pattern, you want to make sure you use the correct fingers.
With the A major pattern, after you’ve played that open A string, you must use your 2nd finger (the middle finger) to press the same string at the 2nd fret.
For the 4th fret you want to use the 4th finger (the pinky).
For the 1st fret you want to use the 1st finger (the index finger).
We don’t use the 3rd finger in this A major pattern.
The next of our major scale patterns is the..
G major scale (open position)
Here’s the tab:
For this pattern, use:
- The 2nd finger for the 3rd fret.
- The 1st finger for the 2nd fret.
- The 3rd finger for the 4th fret.
The next of our major scale patterns is the..
E major scale (open position)
Here’s the tab:
You’ll notice this pattern is the same as the A major scale pattern, except it’s one string lower.
Therefore, the fingering is the same:
- For the 2nd fret you want to use the 2nd finger (the middle finger).
- For the 4th fret you want to use the 4th finger (the pinky).
- For the 1st fret you want to use the 1st finger (the index finger).
- We don’t use the 3rd finger in the E major pattern.
Make sure that you:
- Use one finger per fret.
- Play this scale slowly.
- Practice going up AND down the scale.
The next of our major scale patterns is the..
D major scale (open position)
Here’s the tab:
This pattern just uses three fingers (the first three).
- 1st finger for 2nd fret.
- 3rd finger for 4th fret.
- 2nd finger for 3rd fret.
Remember to:
- Use one finger per fret
- Play the slow slowly.
- Practice moving up and down the scale.
Intermediate Major Scale Patterns: The Closed Pattern
So we’ve tried some open position major scale patterns. Now it’s time to have a look at the closed version.
We call this a closed pattern because it doesn’t feature any open strings. Everything is fretted.
Open position scales are all well and good, but they have their limitations. Most notably, they’re very ‘fixed’ patterns, ie. they can’t be moved around the fretboard very easily.
Not the case with the closed pattern. Once we’ve learnt it, we can move it all over the fretboard.
This pattern also gives us two full octaves (ie. a lot more notes) to play with.
We’ll try this one in A.
Here’s the tab:
When playing this pattern, you want to start with your 2nd finger.
From then on, you need to use:
- The 4th finger for the 7th fret.
- The 1st finger for the 4th fret.
- The 3rd finger for the 6th fret.
It’s particularly important with the closed position pattern to keep the fingering neat. If you don’t, you may lose your place in the scale.
It may feel difficult using fingers like the 4th finger to begin with, but in the long run, it’s a lot more difficult to make effective use of major scale patterns if your fingering is sloppy.
Bad habits are difficult to break, so it’s best to start as we mean to go on.
Struggling a bit with this scale?
If this full two octave closed position major scale feels a bit much, you could try something a bit easier.
The G major pentatonic scale
This is like the major scale, except it has less notes.
It’s also a bit more forgiving if you ever get into improvising.
Here’s the tab:
And here’s a diagram of where you can play G major pentatonic all over the fretboard.
Advanced major scale patterns: improvisation, key changing and bonus patterns
It’s all very well learning major scale patterns, but what can we actually do with them?
The most obvious answer to that question is: we can improvise!
If you’ve ever wanted to play a killer solo or a riff or a melody, this is how.
Improvisation Challenge
Here is a backing track in the key of A major.
We’re going to improvise along with it using the A major scale pattern.
All you’re going to do here is, listen to the backing track, try out different notes from the scale and see how they come together to form a melody.
Give it a try.
Note that the aim here is not to simply play the notes of the scale in order. That would defeat the object.
What we want to do is mix the notes about so as they don’t sound like a scale, more like a melody or solo.
If you find a pattern of notes that sounds nice when you play it over and over, then you’ve just written a riff.
How to change the key of major scale patterns
Obviously not every song in the world is in A major.
So if we want to have the freedom to improvise in any song, we need to know how to change the key of the major scale pattern.
It’s fairly straight forward.
All we need is a basic grasp of the musical alphabet.
Here’s a handy diagram of ALL of the notes on the guitar:
Notice how the 5th fret on the low E string in this diagram is an A note?
That’s where our A major scale starts, isn’t it?
So to change the key of our major scale patterns, we can simply use this diagram to move our pattern up or down.
For example, let’s say we want the B major scale.
If you look at the diagram, you’ll notice that B is two frets along from A, so that’s how far up we need to move the pattern.
This is called transposing.
To learn more about guitar keys, go here: Guitar Keys – An Essential Guide
How do we know what key we want the scale to be in?
A scale pattern is not much use to us if we don’t know what key we need to play it in.
If a song has three major chords in it, we want to figure out which of them is chord 1 (or chord I, as it’s sometimes written in Roman numerals).
This is fairly straight forward.
Here’s a chord sequence:
| A |D | E | |
Which of these two chords are alphabetically next to one another?
That’s right. D and E.
Our chord 1 is the other chord.
In this case: A
So the key is A.
So the key of a song is the first chord in the song?
No. That’s a common misconception.
The first chord in the song can be chord 1, but it isn’t always.
For example, if the chords are:
| D | C |G | |
Which two chords are alphabetically next to one another?
That’s right. C and D.
So the other chord is G.
So the key is G.
NB: This method of figuring out the key only works with major chords, not minor chords.
If it helps, here is a diagram of all the major and minor chords in all the keys that you can refer to:
Note that the major chords are always 1, 4 and 5 (I, IV and V) and the minor chords are always 2, 3 and 6. (ii, iii and vi.)
✓ Stop struggling. Start making music. ✓ Learn 12 beginner-friendly versions of every chord. ✓ This is our most popular guide and it will improve your chord ability quickly. Learn the 12 EASIEST beginner chords with our famous FREE guide
Still struggling? Stick to pentatonics!
If you’re struggling to figure out the key despite having this method and the above chart to help you, you can always stick to the pentatonic scales we looked at earlier.
With pentatonic scales you can pick any chord from the song and match up the pattern with it.
Eg. If the chords are D, C and G like in the earlier example, you can use either the D, C or G major pentatonic scale.
Just make sure to match major pentatonics to major chords and minor pentatonics to minor chords.
Want to learn about minor pentatonics? Check out this article: Pentatonic Scale: An Essential Guide
Some bonus major scale patterns
If you’re feeling adventurous, you might like to give these patterns a try:
Major 7 arpeggio:
What we’re doing here is essentially only playing every other note of the major scale.
So we’re playing the 1st note (the root), the 3rd note, the 5th note and the 7th note. (The final note is just a repeat of the root note.)
We’re leaving out the 2nd note, the 4th note, the 6th note.
As the saying goes, less is more!
You’ll probably find the major 7 arpeggio has a very mysterious sound… or a very jazzy sound.
Three fingers per string scale pattern:
This pattern will sound identical to the intermediate pattern, but because it uses three fingers on each string, you’ll find it’s ideal for fast playing, especially if you just pick the first note on each string and play the other two as hammer-ons.
This example is in G.
Obviously for a pattern like this, our earlier one finger to a fret method of playing isn’t going to work.
The best thing to do is start each string with the 1st finger and end each string with the 4th finger.
For the notes imbetween, use either the 2nd or 3rd finger, depending on what’s nearest and easiest.
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