On Guitar.
A scale is just a series of musical notes, starting on a particular tone (“C”) and moving upward in pitch in a certain pattern. The pattern we’re going to look at today is called a major scale. This scale is probably the basis of all music you’ve heard in your life—jazz, country, blues, rock, pop… if you learn this, everything you do with music for the rest of your life will be easier to learn, understand, and play.
You’ll notice that this looks a lot like a chord diagram. In this case, instead of playing all the notes at once (impossible!) you’ll play them one at a time, from the lowest pitch up to the highest, then backward again until you arrive back at the first note.
So how do we know which note is the lowest in the diagram to the left?
On the guitar, the thicker strings make a lower sound. In the diagram, the vertical line all the way to the left is the thickest, lowest string. The vertical line on the right is the thinnest.
Since that thickest string has no dots on it, we won’t play it at all. But the next string has two!
Remember, we’re going to play these notes one at a time. On each string, start with the note that’s closest to the headstock and play all the notes on that string before moving on to the next.
Then move to the next string, again starting with the note closest to the headstock, until you arrive at the final note.
Then reverse your steps, playing the whole scale from the highest note to the lowest.
If you’re careful and play exactly the notes you see above in the diagram in the right order, you’ll be rewarded with a very familiar set of sounds: “Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do!”
Then, backwards: “Do Ti La Sol Fa Me Re Do.”
This is an exciting beginning—as we’ll soon see, this scale will help you play anything you want to play… and help you write your own melodies!