For the time being, I’m going to take a little break from writing about triads. This lesson is going to be about a great major scale exercise that I think is really helpful in opening up how you see the guitar neck. This was shown to me by the great New York guitarist Sheryl Bailey during my first semester at Berklee when I took guitar lessons with her. I take no credit for inventing it, but it helped me a great deal, so I thought I’d pass it on.

The General Idea
The idea of this exercise is to play through all 12 major scales in one single position on the guitar. It can be kind of tricky and take some time and brain work to see all of the scales in one single position, but it is well worth it. Like I said above, it can really open up how you see the guitar neck by making you familiar with lots of fingerings for the major scale that you may have not played before. Also, doing this exercise thoroughly in several positions will greatly expand your ability to see the relationships between notes of the major scale.

A good way to make sure that you go through all 12 keys is to go through the cycle of fourths, which simply means that for each new key, you go up the interval of a fourth to choose the next key you will play. It’s called a circle because by going through the keys this way, you will eventually come back to the one that you started on.

If you’re unfamiliar with the circle of fourths, an example of the order of keys if you were starting on G would be: G, C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, B, E, A, D. You can start anywhere in this sequence of notes and the order will be the same.

So, How Should I Do This?
A good place to start would be the 2nd position. This way you are low on the guitar, but can stretch to the first fret and won’t have to use open strings. What you are going to do is play up and down each major scale from the lowest note you can reach without leaving the position to the highest note you can reach without leaving the position. Since you are starting on the lowest and ending on the highest notes in the position you’re in, you are almost never going to be starting or ending on the root note of the scale.

When doing this exercise, figure out the notes of each scale in the position with whatever method makes the most sense to you. You could think of the note names that are in each major scale, the number of each note in the major scale, or even the sound of the notes compared to the sound of fingerings you may already know for the major scale. Again, this can take a while no matter how you figure out the notes of each scale. But, as you do it over and over, patterns will emerge and you will gradually start to see the scales much easier. I promise!

Go Slow, Don’t Write Anything Down!

I recommend not writing down the fingerings as you figure them out. The way I did it was simply to start at the beginning, in the second position I started in the key of G, and just refigure each scale out in that position every day. By doing this repetition each day of going through each scale, you will really learn and internalize the fingerings rather than figuring out a bunch of fingerings and then just memorizing them from a piece of paper.

Just go very slowly, making sure that you are playing the right notes for each scale. Don’t even worry about learning the fingerings, trying to make it fluid, etc. If you just repeat the exercise each day, you will learn the patterns and it will get easier and easier to play.

Examples

Here are some examples to get you started. These are fingerings for the first three keys in the cycle of fourths starting on the note G. Remember, though, try to figure all of these fingerings out on your own. Just use these examples as a guide so you are clear on how to do the exercise.

The G major scale starting at the 2nd position

The C major scale starting at the 2nd position

The F major scale starting at the 2nd position

After you’re able to do it somewhat fluidly in the 2nd position, you move up to the 3rd, and then to the 4th, and then the 5th, and…you get the idea! It will get easier with each position because many of the patterns will repeat themselves in different areas of the guitar.

I hope you enjoy working on this exercise! It can be a bit of a brain-teaser, but is also a lot of fun. And, again, will be very helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. And, if you’re in the area and are interested in guitar lessons in Chicago, check out Village Guitar Studio!