Welcome to your first scales lesson. The first scale we are going to go over is the C Major Scale. The notes of a C Major scale are all natural notes with no sharps or flats which makes it alot easier to visualize and execute. The notes are:
The C Major Scale across the entire neck looks like this:
To explain the diagram:
1. Horizontal lines are your strings with the bottom line being your low E (6th) string.
2. Vertical lines are your frets with the far left double vertical line being your nut.
3. The black dots are your fret markers just like on your guitar.
4. The circled numbers are the scale degrees of the scale itself as shown in the first diagram.
5. The notes to the left of the nut are your open strings which are in the key.
Notice the numbers are the same from the top diagram as they are for the bottom diagram. Meaning, that if you see a "1" on the neck diagram, then that is a "C" note. When you see a "2" on the neck diagram, then that is a "D" note and so on...
Also, in the neck diagram the root note which in this scale is "C" is highlighted in red. So every red number 1 you notice is the note of C.
Including the red note as well as all the purple notes will give you C Major Pentatonic Scale. To bettter explain, A diatonic or heptatonic (7 tone) scale contains all the notes in that specific scale. A pentatonic scale (5 tone) contains just the main, fundamental, or "in" notes of that scale. Think of it this way, the pentatonic scale is the meat and potatoes while the extra diatonic notes added are the spice or flavor or "color" tones that add dissonance while still being in the correct key.
Here is a barebones C Major Pentatonic neck diagram with the root notes still in red:
I know it looks overwhelming but we will go into more detail later regarding single string scales, linear scales as well as the very popular vertical or box patterns. Familiarize yourself with the diagrams and the concept and once you have a grasp of the idea, then when new scales are presented, all you have to do is shift a tone up or down a half step or so to conform to the new scales. Good luck and expect more scales coming soon.
