The Major Scale
To begin playing Jazz lead guitar, you will need to be familiar with the major scale. A major scale is a pattern of eight notes in alphabetical order that produce the familiar sound:
The C major scale contains these notes in the following order:
The distance between each note is two frets except for 
and 
where the distance is only one fret.
The distance of two frets is called a tone indicated by T.
The distance of one fret is called a semitone indicated by ST.
The major scale is probably the most common scale used in music. The following example demonstrates one octave of the C major scale in the open position. Make sure you know it from memory.
The following diagram shows all of 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 is indicated twice. 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.
These notes can be used to play literally thousands of melodies in the key of C major. 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.
For example, 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. This is a modal approach to playing scales, which is the way Jazz players often use scales.
As well as knowing which notes will sound best over a particular chord, the things which make a melody interesting are the rhythm and the order the notes are played in. The scale is only the starting point.
If you just run up and down a scale, it gets boring very quickly. Compare the following example with the previous one and you will hear how a melody can be created from the scale. This melody is played with a swing feel, which will be discussed in following lessons.
