My First Lead Guitar Lesson - A Simple Method To Learn Lead Guitar

[Jan King]

The C major scale can unlock the entire fretboard
To learn lead guitar, the major scale is the first and most important
scale to learn. The major scale contains within itself the minor scale
as well. Many beginner lead guitarists are being taught the pentatonic
scale as a first lead guitar lesson. I personally have never bothered
with the pentatonic scale, as it too is contained within the major
scale. Anyway, enough about why your first lead guitar lesson should
be the major scale, let's get down to it.
The first lead guitar lesson - Understanding the major scale
To best understand the major scale and how it applies to lead guitar
and the fretboard, we need to work with the easiest example of the
major scale. That would be C major (I think you might have guessed
that by now). I'm going to assume that you know nothing about music,
so please forgive me as I'm trying to make this as clear as possible.
The music scale starts with A and progresses up to G, or G sharp to be
entirely accurate, and then reverts back to A again. The notes in the
C major scale are C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and then C again. What makes
the major scale sound major is the difference in pitch between the
notes. These differences in pitch are called intervals.
The difference between the notes C and D, for example, are referred to
as a tone. A tone is the equivalent of two fret spaces on the guitar,
so if you put your finger behind the first fret of the guitar and
then, on the same string, put your finger behind the third fret, you
would have played a note one tone up from the first fret. A tone can
also be called a whole-tone. A semi-tone is only one fret spacing.
Let's see how this applies to the major scale.The C major scale has
the following note intervals
C to D is a whole-tone
D to E is a whole-tone
E to F is a semi-tone
F to G is a whole-tone
G to A is a whole tone
A to B is a whole tone and
B to C is a semi-tone
So if you where playing this on a guitar and you where using just one
string, you would go 2 frets 2 frets 1 fret 2 frets 2 frets 2 frets 1
fret. If the note you started on was C, then you would have played the
C major scale, and if you had started on a D you would have played the
D major scale. Whatever note you start on, as long as you play the
same pattern of note intervals, it would be the major scale of that
first note. I think it's a good thing to mention sharps and flats. A
sharp is one semitone up, so if you where playing a G note, and then
played one fret higher, that would be G sharp, or G# as it's written.
A flat note is one fret down, so G# would be the same note as A flat,
also written as Ab. Normally the lower case b is smaller and to the
top right of the note name.
The second lead guitar lesson - Applying the major scale to the
fretboard
To learn to play lead guitar with this information, lets start with
the note names of the guitar strings, so we'll have a good grasp of
where in the C major scale each string is. What we're trying to do
here is create five separate but interconnected lead guitar scale
patterns staring at the nut, and working our way up to the twelfth
fret. The twelfth fret is an octave higher than the nut, so all the
patterns just repeat themselves from there.
Here are the note names of the six guitar strings, provided you've
used standard guitar tuning.
The sixth string is E (this is the thickest string, or lowest
sounding)
The fifth string is A
The fourth string is D
The third string is G
The second string is B
The first string is E
So if we start on the sixth string, and we're working out the C major
scale, we know that between E and F there is only a semitone interval,
so we then play the first fret on the E string. Next note we're
looking for is G, and between F and G there is a whole-tone
difference, so we play the third fret on the E string and so on.
Now the idea is to create five small patterns, each covering a
distance of three to five frets (It varies according to the pattern).
The scale patterns should be playable without having to move your hand
too much up and down the neck of the guitar when playing any one
pattern. Some of the patterns will have overlapping notes, but that's
fine, as long as you memorize them easily.
So far we've worked out the first three notes on the sixth string. To
help you along a bit, I'm going to write out which frets are played on
which string for the first position guitar scale in the key of C. A
"0" will mean the open string, and the frets will be numbered 1, 2,
and 3 etc.
6th string is 0, 1, 3.
5th string is 0, 2, 3.
4th string is 0, 2, 3.
3rd string is 0, 2.
2nd string is 0, 1, 3.
1st string is 0, 1, 3.
I'll leave it up to you to work out the rest of the fretboard in C
major, as long as you know the intervals between the notes, you should
do okay. Here is something I want you to keep in mind when practicing
lead guitar scales. When you're picking the notes, try and use
alternating strokes, in other words down up down up and so on. The
most important of all though is to have fun and enjoy.

A Complete Learning Method: http://guitarjamor.blogspot.com/#

[Jan King]