The Major Scale
The major scale is a series of 8 notes in alphabetical order that has the familiar sound:
Thus the C major scale contains the following notes.
The distance between each note is two frets except for EF and BC where the distance is only one fret. A distance of two frets is a tone, indicated by T. A distance of one fret is a semitone, indicated by ST. The following example demonstrates one octave of the C major scale.
These notes have been used to play thousands of melodies ranging from Classical music to Folk and Country, to Jazz, to classic Rock songs. Here is a a short melody created from the C major scale.
The diagram below shows all the natural notes in the open position. They are all notes of the C major scale, even though the lowest note of the pattern is E and the highest note is G. The key note C occurs twice and is indicated with a square around it. This pattern can be described as the full open position fingering of the C major scale.
C Major Scale in Open Position
Here are the notes from the diagram written in standard music notation and tablature. Because the lowest note in the fingering is E instead of C, a different effect is produced (listen to the CD). This can be used deliberately to create a variety of sounds from the scale when soloing. It will be demonstrated further in the section on modal playing (lesson 39).
It is not necessary to always start and finish on the note C. Depending on which chords you are playing over, it may sound best to start on any of the notes in the scale. E.g. if you were playing over a C chord followed by a D minor chord you could play the scale starting on C for the C chord but start on D for the D minor chord, as shown in the following example.
The Key of C Major
When a song consists of notes from a particular scale, it is said to be written in the key which has the same notes as that scale. For example, if a song contains mostly notes from the C major scale, it is said to be in the key of C major.
The following song Arkansas Traveller is in the key of C major. Notice that the melody goes to a D note at the same time as the D minor chord occurs, using the principle demonstrated in the previous example. Notice also the use of sequence patterns in this melody.
