The Major Scale - Part 3
In the first part of this lesson, we studied the definition of a Major Scale and the 7 most common patterns for playing it on the guitar. Next, in part 2, we covered William Leavitt’s positions for playing the Major Scale. In this last part of my Major Scale lesson, we will take a look at another pattern-based system for playing scales, the CAGED system. The idea behind it is to exploit the relationship between common chord and scale patterns. For this lesson, the prerequisites are the same as for part 1.
The Major Scale - Part 2
This is the second part of my Major Scale guitar lesson. In part 1, you learned about the Major Scale, how to construct it and how to play it using 7 different positions on the guitar. In this part 2, we will take a look at William Leavitt’s fingering positions for the Major Scale. For those who don’t know him, he was a jazz guitar player and professor at the Berklee College of Music, where he developed a learning method based on his famous series of books ‘A Modern Method for Guitar’. This 3-volume series presents the guitar fingerings we will explore in this lesson. The prerequisites are the same as for part 1, but this time reading music notation is mandatory.
The Major Scale - Part 1
I am remaking a series of guitar lessons I wrote to Wholenote.com about 8 years ago. Hopefully, this will be useful to some people out there who are learning on their own to play the guitar. The first topic I will cover is the Major Scale, which is the backbone for everything else I am planning to talk about.
First, prerequisites. This is not a lesson for very fresh beginners. It is expected that the player knows:
- How to play some chords and scales on the guitar using a pick.
- The fingerboard: how strings and frets are numbered, standard EBGDAE tuning and the notes on each string.
- How to read tablature and, preferably, music notation in the G2 clef.
- How to read chord and scale patterns.
- Intervals and fretboard patterns for them.
If you meet the criteria, let’s get started. As a word of warning, this is a very long 3-part lesson. In this first part, we will cover the theory basics and the usual 7 playing positions for the Major Scale. In Part 2, we will take a look at the William Leavitt’s fingerings for the Major Scale. And in the third and last part, we will cover the CAGED system.
