Lesson 8 - Major Scales
Lesson 6 looked at note lengths and strumming patterns. If you havent looked at that yet, I would advise you to have a go at that before you continue with this.Its worth refering back to these lessons every now and again to jog your memory.
And Remember, take the lessons at your own speed, there is no rush, good luck!
What's involved in this lesson?
This lesson explores major scales and tablature (tab). Contents:Tablature
A Major Scale
Alternate Picking
B Major Scale
Summary
Tablature
Tablature is a way of reading guitar music without having to read sheet music. It is simple to understand:
The lines that are horizontal simply represent the strings of the guitar (remember that the highest string is the highest in pitch - so from top to bottom the notes are E B G D A E). The numbers represent the fret that should be played. You read tab from left to right.
There are symbols that are used for different techniques, but for now you should just learn to get use to reading tablature in its simple form.
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A Major Scale
Here are the notes and guitar tab for an A major scale. Note that the first note of the scale is an A? (Fret 5, low E string). This is the root note of the scale. The root note of a chord or scale is the note of which that chord or scale is based upon. Play each note with a down pick to the steady tap of your foot.
(Also look at the diagram below to tell you which fingers to use... don't worry it's not a chord diagram, you don't have to play them all at once! Just find the note you are playing on the diagram and see which number (finger) is in the black spot - you will notice it's one finger per fret).
Oh, and ignore the time signatures and bar lines on this page.
Here is a diagram to show where your fingers should be positioned for the individual notes:
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Alternate Picking
Got the hang of that? Now we shall look at alternate picking. This means up and down picking. The first note should be a down pick. The second note is an up pick. As you should notice the pattern is down, up, down, up etc... Hence the name "Alternate Picking"! Use the previous tab to achieve this.
Try and play the major scale both ways. This means when you get to the end, you start to work your way back to the beginning. We provide the tab to make it easier for you:
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B Major Scale
If we take the whole A major scale pattern, and we move everything up 2 frets. It should look like this:
The root note is in the same place where the pattern is concerned. So if you go up 2 frets from A (the old root note), what is the new root note? The answer is B. So the scale is now a B major scale. You can move the scale anywhere across the fret. And by looking at the root note, you can determine the name of the major scale (whether it's a C# major scale, or an E major scale etc...).
Note: if you take the first 8 notes of the major scale pattern, you can play this on any fret starting from the A or E string. This is a shorter and simplified version of the major scale.
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So, to summarise:
- Try to remember how tablature works.
- You should also try to remember the pattern for the major scale. Baring in mind you can play it any where on the fret as long as it has the correct shape (intervals between each notes).
- Remember what root notes are, and practice alternate picking.
There's a lot to remember in this lesson. So go over everything thoroughly. When you've covered this you should take a look at lesson 9.
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