Guitar Scales

Guitar scales for beginners: which to learn, in what order

Notes are shown in A so you can compare them; every page has a key menu.

Natural, harmonic and melodic minor: the difference

All three minor scales share the first five notes: 1 2 ♭3 4 5. They differ only in the 6th and 7th. Natural minor keeps both lowered (♭6 and ♭7). Harmonic minor raises the 7th. Melodic minor raises the 6th and the 7th.

In A. Bold = the notes that differ from natural minor.

Natural minor is the plain sound of a minor key and the one most songs use. Harmonic minor exists for the chords: its raised 7th makes the V chord major, so a minor key can end with a strong V to i, like E to Am in A minor. Melodic minor exists for melody: raising the 6th as well removes the three-fret jump of harmonic minor, so a line can climb smoothly to the root.

In classical music melodic minor uses the raised notes going up and comes back down as natural minor. Jazz players use the raised version in both directions.

Major vs minor scale

The minor scale on a root lowers three notes of the major scale on the same root: the 3rd, the 6th and the 7th. C major is C D E F G A B; C minor is C D E♭ F G A♭ B♭. The lowered 3rd is what you hear as minor.

Every major scale also has a relative minor that uses exactly the same notes, starting on its 6th degree: A minor has the notes of C major, E minor the notes of G major. Same notes, different home note.

How to read a guitar scale chart

A guitar scale chart is the neck seen from the front, turned on its side. The six horizontal lines are the strings: high e at the top and low E at the bottom, the same way round as guitar tab. The vertical lines are the frets, numbered below the board; the thick line on the left is the nut, and dots left of it are open strings.

Each dot is a note of the scale: press the string just behind that fret. On this site the brightest dot is the root (1), the 3rd and 5th are lighter grey, and the label shows either the note name or its scale degree. Charts that number the dots 1 to 4 are showing fingers instead: one finger per fret, starting with the index finger on the lowest fret of the box.

Play a box from the lowest note on the 6th string up to the highest note on the 1st string and back down. If the chart is a movable shape, the root dot tells you where to place it for each key.

To join boxes into one map of the neck, see CAGED system scales.

Every note on the guitar neck

The board below shows every note on the neck, frets 0 to 17; the light dots are the natural notes (no sharp or flat), and you can tap any of them to hear it. Each string repeats from the 12th fret, one octave higher than the open string.

Neighbouring natural notes are two frets apart, except B to C and E to F, which are one fret apart. The 5th fret of each string is the same note as the next open string up, except on the G string, where it is the 4th fret that matches the open B.

To see one note everywhere it appears on the neck, or an arpeggio or scale in another tuning, open the fretboard notes map.

The note names assume standard tuning, E A D G B E. Check yours with the guitar tuner.