Scales of Guitar

Scales of Guitars

In my previous post of Guitar lessons, I've discussed the guitar chords in details. In this post, I'll be describing the major and minor scales with chromatic scales of the guitar with some infographics which will definitely help you.

As we already know about the series of notes from my previous post, which are

W- Whole Step, H- Half Step

We also learnt that from going from left to right in this series, song's pitch will go high and in the same way upon coming back it gets lower. We've learned that only A, C, D, F, G have its sharps and base chords. We have denoted the Sharpes as "#" and the base as "b".

In this post, we'll learn about the two most used sales of guitar i.e major and minor. And I can assure you that if you understand these scales properly you can play any song by finding its scale. In Guitar, there are mainly two scales, which are-

1. Major Scale

2. Minor scale
   & (Chromatic Scale)

First, we should know, what is a scale? A scale is a combination of notes arranged in a set of the organised pitch, where the first note is called its root note which indicated which scale it is. Simply from each scale, we can arrange the seven swara's of Hindustani music that is "sa re ga ma pa dha ni -sa" in different pitches. 

Now, what is pitch, you have already found it many times in this post. In music, A pitch defines in which note the song is. Or simple terms it's describing the frequency produced by an object. For understanding you can take the example like this - Opera Musics are made up of high pitch and we are talking in low pitches. It can be inferred by the intensity of sound produced by the music.

1. Major Scale - It is the most important scale of Guitar as most of the songs are in major scales. This scale consists of seven notes of both whole and half intervals. For understanding, intervals visit this post. The formula for making major scale is - 

W W H W W W H, 

(where the first and the last gap gives the scale or key of the song)

Example - For C major scale - C D E F G A B C

2. Minor Scale - Like the major scale minor scale is widely used in too many songs. Like the major scale, it has seven notes comprising both half and whole steps. The formula for making minor scale is -

W H W W H W W

(where the first and the last gap gives the scale or key of the song)

Example - For A minor scale - A B C D E F G A

By learning these two scales a person can play almost all the songs available. However, these scales further have some classifications but those are not needed if you want to play your guitar casually in the home or in campfires. 

    Apart from this another scale named "Chromatic scale" is available where all the 12 notes are been used.  As all notes are used so we can say all the notes are in semitone. It's a very important scale, as here all the notes are used, so it gives us an idea of the placement of the notes for each respective string.

Do check my other guitar lessons too.

MUST CHECK, Best Song for Practicing Barre Chords.

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