How To Play Guitar Scales

Now it’s time to get into the real nitty gritty about scales. If you are going to seriously be able to improvise or write songs you need to know more than how to find the notes in a major scale. There are 7 other scales that we will go over as well as some scales that consist of only 5 notes. In this section we will be mainly using a numbering system to discuss how our scales are derived from a mathematical standpoint.We begin again with our standard C major scale:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

As you see I have placed the numbers 1-8 under the notes in this scale we will be referring back to this over and over again in our discussion of building scales I suggest you get a piece of paper out and write down the following as a reference:

C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

If the numbers don’t line up directly underneath in your browser, make sure you line them up on your paper!

Building our scales

What I am about to show you is how we build different scale by beginning each one on a different note in the C major scale. What we are doing is taking the notes from the C major scale to build our scales, then using the notes of the major scale of our root note to come up with a numbering system that we can use to transfer these notes into any key. (Reminder: our “key” is determined by the number of flats or sharps in our base scale that our song is in. The major scale used in our song begins with the root note which in return is also the ‘key’ of the song. See the basic theory section in the beginner’s section if you are confused.)

These new scales that we are forming are called “modes”. Our first one is called the “Dorian Mode”. Here’s how we come up with the formula.

First we start our scale (using the C major scale as our base) on the 2nd note (D):�


D E F G A B C D

Now look at D Major scale - D E F# G A B C# D
                            1 2 3  4 5 6 7  8

So our Dorian formula is:   D E F  G A B C  D
                            1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 8

So our first mode uses this formula: 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 8. Remember that you are in the Key of the ROOT note (in this case D); NOT the Key of the base scale (in this case C)

The rest of the modes are formulated using the same method only with different starting notes. Before we get to them I want to make it clear that the Dorian Mode in any Key is derived from the numeral formula, not the C scale. Here’s another example:


G major scale - G A B C D E F# G
                1 2 3 4 5 6 7  8

G Dorian mode - G A Bb C D E F  G
                1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 8

This is a G scale or mode, not an F scale even though
the notes are the same as an F major scale!