learn to play guitar scales guitar tab

Below you can practice playing and hearing the notes of the *C Major Scale* with a feeling of smoothness and rhythm, giving each note a clear, full, and ringing quality. Land precisely on each note, with your finger close to, but not touching the actual fret. Musicians call this playing *Cleanly.*
	When you learn this, or any scale, concentrate on visualizing the pattern, its shape and the feeling of running the notes. Scale playing is also an exercise in *hearing.* Make sure you can hear the scale in your head, imagining the sound of each note and understanding, in your ear, the relationship that each note in the scale has to the scale itself. Practice a scale until you can play it smoothly, slowly and rhythmically.

Applying The C Major Scale Pattern.....

Inside every scale is a whole beautiful world of music just waiting to materialize. The Major Scale, like all scales, has a sound quality or musical character associated with it. The Quality of the Major Scale is bright and tuneful. Because this scale is so strong and consonant it is the most widely used scale in our modern system of music.

Listening To Famous Melodies Which Demonstrate The Sound Quality Of The Major Scale.

Brahms Lullaby

Arkansas Traveler

Pop Goes The Weasel

Joy To The World

Auld Lang Syne

This listening exercise is about truly hearing Major Scale melodies then describing them and making your own judgements about the sound quality of the melodies-their musical effect. As diverse and varied as these tunes may be, they have their Major Tonality in common. These famous melodies will help you to identify the sweet and melodious Quality of the Major Scale.

Guided Practice......

The tunes above were recorded using the C Major Scale featured in this lesson. For practice in applying the scale, open this link to find the melodies tabbed out for analysis, study and practice.


*Guided Practice......*
	The *Major Scale* also serves as the organizing principle and basis of music theory and also for playing improvised solos. Open this link to find additional thoughts, practicing suggestions and advanced concepts.

Conclusion......

As the basis of many great melodies and also as a tool for learning abot and studying music theory the Major Scale is easily the most important scale in the modern system of music. Among experienced musicians, the Major Scale is practiced quite regularly. When you study this lesson be sure you are aware of and have firm grasp on three key points:

Scales obtain their sound from the distances between their notes, called a formula. Write down the formula for a Major Scale.
All scales have a generall overall sound quality or musical flavor. This is simply called Quality. The quality of the Major Scale is bright, tuneful and melodic.
Scales should be heard inside your minds ear, knowing the sound of the scale and the distances between the notes. Through the memorization of scale patterns, your fingers will learn to respond to mental sound image in a smooth, accurate and confident manner.

*Introduction.....*
A Scale is defined as a series of notes arranged in order form lowest to highest. There are easily hundreds of known scales in our system of music. However, the most useful and important one of all is the Major Scale. As the basis of harmony and the foundation of music theory, the *Major Scale* provides an important point of focus for a student of music. The *tonality*, or overall sound and flavor of the scale, is found in virtually all styles and genres of music.
A scale derives its sound, and is defined by the distance between the note in the scale, this is called a *scale formula.* With the Major Scale, these distances are either *half steps* (two notes right next to each other) or whole steps (two notes seperated by one other note). The *formula* for the *Major Scale* could be written as: WHOLE - WHOLE - HALF - WHOLE - WHOLE - WHOLE - HALF
*Theory & Mechanics.....*


The C Major Scale is played on a keyboard by starting and ending on the *"C"* note. The half steps can be seen as naturally occuring between the *B - C* and E - F keys as illustrated here. To play the C Major Scale on a piano one would simply start
at the *"C"* note and play all the white keys, or the large "Natural" keys, those not designated as flats or sharps, untilhe arrived at the next highest *"C"* note. The same type of thinking can be applied to the neck of the guitar by sliding up one string and playing the notes of the scale as you go higher and higher along the neck of the guitar.
				The important point made by these animations is that any scale, including the *Major Scale* derives its sound from the distances between it's notes, the *scale formula.* The *Major Scale* has 1/2 steps between notes 3-4 (mi/ fa) & notes 7-8 (ti/ do). Play the *C Major Scale* as written on the Tab and traditional staffs below.

Sliding up and down one string is an interesting, useful and educational way to play a *Major Scale* but an uncommon one. Although this approach is somewhat unconventional and unorthodox, this type of playing and thinking can add another dimension to you scale playing, scale connecting ability, soloing and therefore overall playing. Many guitarists add this up and down linear movement along one string as a logical, intuitive way of creating melodies and/ or changing position.

Of course, most guitar playing is learned in position, and the same holds true for scales. The *First Position* begins with the first fret and and includes the open strings. When playing in the first or *Open* *Position,* each finger is assigned to its own fret, with the first finger playing all the first fret notes and the second finger being responsible for all the notes on the second fret and so on for finger 3.