Online Guitar Coaching by Will Kriskihttp://OnlineGuitarCoaching.com C Major Scale Shapes in 5 Positions (from Root to Root)

If I were to sum up my philosophy of teaching it would be: Keep itsimple and understand what you are doing.While I teach a simple 5 movable shape system that helps youvisualize the fretboard and minimize the number of scales and modesyou need to learn, this is not about mindlessly playing a bunch of shapes.Ok let’s get started by locating the notes C (called the roots or firstnote of a scale). There is one on the 5

string, 3

fret (play with2

/middle finger) and one on the 3

string, 5

fret (play with pinky).Notice they form a shape on the fretboard. Two strings away, two fretsaway, middle finger on 5

string, pinky on 3

string (this will beimportant later on).Now we can add the notes of the C major scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B).See how they fit around the C notes? This scale forms a shape on theneck because of the intervals between each note in the scale (eg. D isa whole step above C which equals 2 frets).

Let’s move up the fretboard a bit. First we locate the root notes(shown in red below). The low C is on the 6

string, 8

fret (play withpinky) and the higher C is on the 3

string, 5

fret (play with 1

/indexfinger). Then we add the notes of the C major scale as before. Whenyou play the scale you need to shift from 5

position to 4

position onthe 3

string (to play the B and C). The method I teach requires nofinger stretches.We can play another C major scale an octave higher in this sameposition (let’s leave that for another lesson)Let’s move up the fretboard again. We find the roots and add themajor scale notes. Note that these forms shapes on the fretboard andcan therefore be moved up or down the fretboard to form other majorscales (where the true power starts to reveal itself).

By visualizing shapes, we can reduce the number of scales we have tomemorize. Let’s move up again to the 9

fret. This requires a positionshift on the 2

string (for notes A, B, and C).Finally let’s move to the 12

fret. Roots are in red as usual.We can now add notes above and below the roots staying in oneposition to give us more to work with. Note that this also forms alarger shape – known as the 5 CAGED shapes. Here is the last shapeexpanded to include all reachable notes in the 12

position.