What up my fellow guitar freaks? Darrin Goodman here with some more tasty guitar info for ya’, today I want to talk about electric guitar scales. Actually scales are the same on the electric and the acoustic guitar, but I was specifically asked to talk about the electric, so let’s get to it.
There are many different types of musical scales, far too many to cover in this article. So today I will talk about three common scales that you can use in your electric guitar playing for whatever style you play or are wanting to play.
First, let’s take a look at the Major Scale. The major scale is a seven tone scale that consists of a perfect first, major second, major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, major sixth and a major seventh. These are the seven tones that make up a major key. So for example, if we are in the key of C Major, the seven notes are; C, D, E, F, G, A and B. There are several different patterns of the major scale, but I personally like this one.
Major Scales
A couple of reasons why I prefer this pattern is because it has three notes per string which makes it easy to alternate pick and to connect the different positions together.
The next scale we have is the Minor Pentatonic Scale. This is a five tone scale that is very useful for improvising and composing solos. This scale consists of a perfect first, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth and minor seventh. If we continue in the key of C Major, this scale will actually start on the note “A”, which is the relative minor to C Major. Again, there are other patterns for this scale, but this is the easiest to memorize and create licks out of.
Finally let’s look at the “blues scale”, which is a Hexatonic Scale, meaning that it has six notes. It is basically just an altered pentatonic scale with one added note, a diminished fifth. Again in the key of C Major this scale will start on the relative minor, A.
By adding in the diminished fifth you get what is referred to as the “blue note” and you will hear that it gives it a bluesy sound.
Well that’s all for me today, I hope this helps.
Darrin
