The chromatic scale is cool - but it isn’t all that special. We’re just playing every fret on the guitar.

Very few (if any) songs use the full chromatic scale. Instead, they use subsets of the chromatic scale created using a pattern of whole and half steps. The Major Scale is one of these patterns.

The Pattern

The Major scale is constructed with the following pattern: (W = Whole, H = Half):

Here’s what it means:

Start from any note. This will be the first note in the scale. Then play the note a whole step away. That will be the second. Repeat this process for each interval (the third and seventh intervals are half steps) - you should arrive at the note you started, an octave away.

An Example

Let’s try it out, starting from D:

1. D is the first note.
2. E is the second (D - D# - E)
3. F# is the third (E - F - F#) (Remember that E and F are a half step away)
4. G is the fourth (F# - G) (This interval is just a half step)
5. A is the fifth (G - G# - A)
6. B is the sixth (A - A# - B)
7. C# is the seventh (B - C - C#)
8. D is the eigth (C# - D)

That gives us D - E - F# - G - A - B - C# - D. Or, as played on the 4th string:

(I only chose the 4th string for convenience - the scales can be played anywhere on the fretboard)

Since we start at D, this is called the D Major Scale.

You might be wondering why we didn’t choose Gb and Db (as opposed to F# and C#). This leads to the second property of the major scale - Every letter (except the first) must be used exactly once in a major scale. Since we already use G and don’t use F, it makes sense to use F# instead of Gb - the same logic applies to Db as well.

More Major Scales

Try to construct a few of the major scales. For reference, I’ve listed a few common major scales and an example of how they sound. I want you to focus on the intervals, rather than the pitch of each note - as I mentioned earlier, these scales can be played on any octave, so the pitches of individual notes doesn’t mean much.