[mapletrees]

This is a section more on playing rather than any new theory info really ......remember....playing better is what you interested in.....


If you have learned how to make a major scale you should set out and find some practical fingerings (they're all over the place) on your guitar.

For example....for the C major scale....

C D E F G A B C ...you could play

3rd string - 5th fret, 7th fret
2nd string - 5th fret, 6th fret, 8th fret
1st string - 5th fret, 7th fret, 8th fret

Just keep in mind there are many other places to find these same notes.....and as an aside...folks who learn to read music learn the fretboard SO much more easily than those who don't....just an observation in general.....

Note there are no open strings in our scale...just like barre chords....such scale fingerings are movable....move the C major scale up two frets and you'd have the D major scale. Move the C major scale down 3 frets and you'd have the A major scale....ask if you don't get it......


Now, it is one thing to think you know something and it is another thing to know something well enough to use.

Don't start getting sucked off into a black hole here.....that would be memorizing fingering after fingering without really taking the time to absorb what notes you're playing. You're just going to fool yourself into thinking that you're getting somewhere when you're not (probably not). You'd be much better off knowing one scale in a musical sense rather than 43 scales as just dots on paper or physical locations on the fretboard.

Nuts....I'll be back....there's ways to practice scales....you don't just want to know them as "root to root"...


In the next couple of posts I'll finally get to how we build the various chords out of major scales...

...what follows right here in this post is not in any way meant to be a complete explanation but rather just a hint as to why you might want to practice playing major scales a particular way....in writing this will probably seem hopelessly complicated....in person, through talking, conversing, and playing, it's very easily understood....

In a nutshell, chords are constructed from scales by picking a root note and then selecting and adding on every other note (you'll see why we call this "stacking thirds" later). Just read the following until you get past the excalmation points...

For example, given the C major scale,

C D E F G A B C

if we select C as a root note and start picking every other note, we would get E and G.

The notes C, E, and G make up a C major chord. Every C major chord you know how to play is just some combination of C's, E's, and G's.

If we took this process of picking every other note way out to the 7th note of the scale, which would be the note B, we'd get a C Maj7 chord. Every C Maj7 chord you know is just some combination of C's, E's, G,s, and B's.

Still using the C major scale....

if I took D as my root note and started adding every other note I'd get the notes

D F and A. These notes together make a Dmin chord. Every Dmin chord you know is just a collection of D's, F's, and A's.

If I took this picking every other note process out to the 7th note from D, that would be the note C, and we'd get

D F A and C. These notes together make a Dmin7 chord. Every Dmin7 chord you know how to play is just a collection of D's, F's, A's, and C's.

!!!!!!!Of course you need to understand the rules that tell you if you've got a major chord as opposed to a minor chord, a Maj7 as opposed to a dominant 7th, etc.....we'll get to that!!!!!!!!!!!


You should practice major scales with this "every other note" concept in your head....the root, 3rd, 5th and 7th, etc...notes are important...

Look at the C major scale again...

C D E F G A B C...we could very easily think of this as

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 or

Root 2 3 4 5 6 7 Root or

R 2 3 4 5 6 7 R...

if we added the next highest note D to the scale we would get

C D E F G A B C D...think of that as

R 2 3 4 5 6 7 R 9

Practice the C major scale (any major scale) the following ways.

- R 2 3 4 5 6 7 R

- R 7 6 5 4 3 2 R

- R 2 3 3 2 R

- 3 2 R

- R 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 R

- 5 4 3 2 R

- R 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 R

- 7 6 5 4 3 2 R

also do the following...they should help you "hear" the scale better...

R 2 3 4 5 6 7 R 9 R

3 4 5 6 7 R 9 R

5 6 7 R 9 R

7 R 9 R or 7 R 2 3 4 5 6 7 R 9 R


ask if you are confused.....

again, this is demonstrated in less than 2 minutes in person....it just looks complicated in writing....it's not....ask, ask, ask

[ 03-02-2001: Message edited by: mapletrees ]

[ 03-03-2001: Message edited by: mapletrees ]

[ 03-03-2001: Message edited by: mapletrees ]