Thomas_Erak_Fan

I'm looking at the scale this site gave me and I don't quite understand.

I thought you start the scale off with C. Here they're saying fret 5 high E string which is note A.

Can someone enlighten me?

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cdgraves

It's just a map of the notes in the scale. It's not telling you in what order to play them.

Look in the "Patterns" column there, and you can select where on the neck to start the scale patterns.

It's very good practice to do scales by playing every note of the scale that occurs on the fretobard, even if the lowest note is not the root of the scale. If you play C major from lowest C major note to highest Cmajor note, you start with your open low E string.

saint_berzerker

That's the C major scale. Like the guy above said, it just isn't listing them starting with a "C" note.

Most lessons/tab will start off on the ROOT note just to make it easier.

rockingamer2

Fur Elise is in the key of A minor, but it starts on an E.

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KG6_Steven

It's a C major scale starting in a different position. It still contains all the notes from C major. Here's another way to think of it...

The G minor pentatonic scale is often thought to start at the 3rd fret of the 6th string. However, there are five positions of G minor pentatonic. Each is comprised of the same notes, however it starts in a different place of the 6th string. There's another G minor pentatonic scale that starts on the 6th fret of the 6th string. That note is Bb, but it still uses all the notes of the scale.

Bad Kharmel

you're an idiot

donegan_zealot

uhh wut

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mdc

^ What's the issue?

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chronowarp

he's perplexed by the fact that you can play a note on the guitar in more than one place.

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Junior#1

All of those notes fit into the C major scale. What note you start on doesn't matter at all. All that matters is what the tonal center is - that's the note that will determine the key - and the interval pattern around that note will determine if it's major or minor or diminished, etc.

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:-D

kudos on your accurate user title

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Thomas_Erak_Fan

OK, I get it now, thanks!

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KG6_Steven

Study a little theory, friend. You'll eventually get it.

Hail

stop thinking in scales, god damn it

this whole music thing will be a lot easier when you stop trying to box everything into fucking scales and just use your ear

there are no shortcuts to making music, and you're learning this lesson firsthand because your entire education is based around you trying to find the easy way out like this.

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cdgraves

I wouldn't call learning scales the "easy" way of doing anything. Knowing all your diatonic scales and the three minors is really just very basic musicianship. Being able to breeze through them gives you a serious head start when you get to "using your ear" stuff like transcription/dictation and learning songs by ear.

It's extraordinarily difficult to organize music sensibly without basic vocabulary such as scales, chords, and basic harmonic concepts. I think it's very beneficial to work on all those skills concurrently, not only to avoid frustration, but because the best music is achieved by using logical, technical, and aural skills together.

liampje

The C major scale contains: C D E F G A B
Regardless of the order of the notes, it is C major.

You also don't say a song is a C major scale, it makes use of the notes within that scale.

Don't approach a scale like it's sequence is holy and must always be presented in a standard order.

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mdc

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Hail

scales are inherent within keys

to learn them is redundant beyond chord construction and entering intervals

aka after like a week you should forget they exist

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cdgraves

Key and scale differ considerably, as you can play in a single key and utilize multiple scales via modulation and borrowing (iv, bIV, bII, +6th chords). Especially in pieces with frequent modulation and chromaticism, having the scale vocabulary is very useful for analysis, even though you probably don't want to play them in a linear fashion.