Home | Scales | Tuner | Forum


Scales

Beginners
frankprs  
24 Oct 2010 17:43 | Quote
Joined: 24 Oct 2010
United States
Karma
Hi
I am new to playing a guitar I have a question about scales. On the sita when you go to scales on the left side of the page this comes up
Scale - Pentatonic Minor
1,b3,4,5,b7 can you tell me what these numbers and leters mean
Phip  
24 Oct 2010 18:46 | Quote
Joined: 23 Dec 2007
United States
Lessons: 1
Karma: 45
Moderator
Frankie! How's Hollywood?
I'll take a shot at this question. Let's use the key of C as an example.
In the key of C the notes are: (starting with the root note which is C)
C D E F G A B
the first note is C
the third note is E
the fourth note is F (getting the picture yet?)
the fifth note is G
the seventh note is B
So in this case you would play C, Eb, F, G and Bb
(the litte "b" stands for "flat")
The notes will change depending on the key but the intervals will not change in relation to the root note (#1).
How'd I do?
Phip
P.S. To understand scales better please check out some of the lessons on this site.
gx1327  
27 Oct 2010 10:57 | Quote
Joined: 20 Sep 2009
United States
Karma: 9
adding on to phip's great answer, basically you can start with any major scale and convert it into any other scale by using those bs (and occasionally #s for sharp notes).

i recommend starting with learning the major scale. there are several ways to learn it, but here is one example:


(frets)
-45--
3-5-7
3-5-7


this is the G major scale, one octave, from the low (E) string to the 3rd (D) string. the notes of G Major are:


1 2 3 4 5 6 7
G A B C D E F#


NOW before we get to that minor pentatonic scale you looked up, let's look at the minor (aeolian) scale. 1 2 3b 4 5 6b 7b

by learning the pattern of the major scale (above) you are learning the positions of each note. now if you play that same scale, but flatten the 3rd, 6th, and 7th notes, you'll get the minor scale. OR:


3-5--
3-56-
3-56-


notice how the 3rd note used to be on the 7th fret. now it's on the 6th fret. same with the 6th note. and the 7th note used to be on the 4th fret. now it's on the 3rd fret because we flattened it.

and coming full circle, what are the notes in G Minor? Well, let's go back to...


1 2 3 4 5 6 7
G A B C D E F#

1 2 3b 4 5 6b 7b
G A Bb C D Eb F


now the pentatonic scale is a little more difficult to apply in the same fashion because you are flattening some notes and also omitting some notes (pentatonic only has 5 notes as opposed to 7). HOWEVER, if you draw out the major scale, draw out the minor scale, and then draw out the minor pentatonic scale, you will see how they relate to each other.

i really recommend doing that --- DRAW everything out. draw a grid and write in "R 2 3 4" etc. in the position on the fretboard. do it over and over again. do it with major scales, do it with various scales. this will help you learn the relative distance between the notes. if you can write out the chromatic (R 2b 2 3b 3 4 4b 5 6b 6 7b 7 R) up and down the fret board, you can easily visualize where each next note is for a particular scale.


Copyright © 2004-2017 All-Guitar-Chords.com. All rights reserved.