So far, everything you have learnt has been demonstrated by scale fingerings. However, in order to become a good lead guitarist, you have to be able to understand musically what you are playing and be able to transfer anything you hear from your mind to the fretboard. To do this, you need a system for identifying pitches which can apply to any scale in any key. The easiest way to do this is to use scale degrees to identify a note’s position in the scale in relation to the root note or keynote (the note after which the key is named – also called the tonic).
Here are the notes of the C major scale with the scale degrees written under the notes. Try playing the scale and singing the scale degree numbers as you play. It is important to learn scale degrees well because a good knowledge of them is essential for transposing music to other keys and for playing effectively over chord progressions.