Major Diatonic Scales:Part 1 Whole Whole Wholey McWholerton

One thing we have yet to touch on here in the blog is the major diatonic scales. There are two ways I teach them to the students. One is the generic patterns and one is the three note per string patterns. All of our examples will be the three note per string kind. Major Diatonic scales are 7 note scales. With our 3 note per string patterns that will leave us 7 patterns/positions to learn. The make up of a major diatoninc scale is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half steps. Here is an example of this in C major:

C
>whole step
D
>whole step
E
>half step
F
>whole step
G
>whole step
A
>whole step
B
>half step
C

You can use this formula for any key. Just change your root. What you want to start out doing is find a C note on your guitar/bass/any stringed instrument, go up that string going whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. You are playing the scale on one string. You repeat this process for everywhere you have your root. Once you play the scale in said key everywhere you can, switch keys. This is going to get you use to hearing how a major scale sounds and get you use to moving around the neck and knowing where all your roots are. Once you get this down we will move on to part 2 next time.