A riff is number of notes or chords that are repeated throughout a song. Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple, Crossroads by Eric Clapton and Stroll On by The Yardbirds are classic examples of riff-based songs.

A lick is simply a sequence of notes that can be used as a basis for improvisation or composing solos. The process of learning licks from other guitarists gives you a collection of musical ideas plus the experience gained from the hours you spend finding and learning these ideas.

As well as learning riffs and licks directly, you can learn the scales for guitar that are used in blues music. These will help you to compose your own solos, riffs and licks as well as give you the knowledge of the guitar that will make learning other artists’ material easier.

The major scale is the basis of all scales and modes you will encounter as you learn. You will need to learn the basic structure of the major scale before you move onto the scales used specifically in blues music.

The Blues Guitar Scales

Now I am going to show you three scales that are used in blues. These scales contain fewer notes than normal scales, and an unusual interval – one and a half tones. The pentatonic scales are commonly used in blues and rock, and the blues scale is a six-note scale derived from the pentatonic.

You will find some basic info on the major, minor, pentatonic and blues scales in the scales chart.

Students of the guitar usually learn the scales in five shapes found on the guitar neck. Each shape occupies the space of four or five frets.

The scale shapes shown in the charts below follow each other on the fretboard. You will see that groups of notes at the end of one pattern will be at the beginning of the next. If I showed all the patterns together on one fretboard, it would be a little confusing, so it is better to learn them separately and fit them together once you have gained some experience playing them. The root notes in all the scales are shown in red.

The pentatonic scales guitar players use are found in the music of many cultures, as well as in our popular music, and are most suitable for blues-based improvisation because all the notes can be played in any sequence with a pleasing sound. As well as being popular amongst blues and rock guitarists, the major and minor pentatonic scales are among the first jazz guitar scales taught to aspiring jazz guitarists.

The minor pentatonic scale is made up of the first, flatted third, fourth, fifth and flatted seventh notes of the major scale. The diagram below shows you the minor pentatonic scale in five different positions on the fretboard.

The Minor Pentatonic Scale in Five Positions on the Guitar Fretboard

A commonly used scale derived from the minor pentatonic is the blues scale. In the same position on the guitar as the minor pentatonic above, you add a flattened fifth to make six notes in the scale. Here are five positions of the blues scale. For a student of any modern genre of guitar blues scales give the opportunity for creativity and experimentation, which will take your playing beyond simply “learning guitar”.

The Blues Scale in Five Positions on the Guitar Fretboard The circles on the diagram are the flatted fifths – the “blue notes”.

The major pentatonic takes the first, second, third, fifth and sixth notes from the major scale. The interval formula for this scale is tone – tone – tone+semitone – tone – tone+semitone.

The Major Pentatonic Scale in Five Positions on the Guitar Fretboard

There is also a blues scale derived from the Major Pentatonic. This is the major blues scale, which uses the first, flatted third, third, fifth and sixth notes of the major scale.

The Major Blues Scale in Five Positions on the Guitar Fretboard The circles on the diagram are the flatted fifths – the “blue notes”.

How to Practice the Scales

The Fretting Hand

The fingerings you use depend a lot on the size and configuration of your hands relative to the fretboard. If a scale pattern covers five frets, you will be using your pinky to fret the notes at the end of the pattern, and you will need to move your hand up to use your first finger to fret the notes at the beginning of the pattern.

The scale shapes on the left have fingerings marked to give you a guide on how to approach playing scales.

The top pattern has the left hand positioned over four frets with one finger assigned to each fret.

The bottom pattern follows the same principle except for the notes on the second string. For these notes, you move your hand up one fret so your first and fourth fingers can reach their respective notes.

The “one finger per fret” rule is a good basis for negotiating the guitar neck, but do not let it get in the way of finding a practical and comfortable method that suits your hands.

The Picking Hand

As for your picking hand, beginner guitar players benefit from using alternate picking to practice scales. This means playing your first note with a down stroke, the second note with an up stroke, and so on. This should be followed strictly, until your hand gets used to playing that way.

There are other methods of playing scales called sweep picking and economy picking which can be learned once you have alternate picking under your fingers.

Learning and Playing Blues Guitar Scales

The four-string bass has just seven notes in four octaves. Here are the notes on the fretboard:

Knowing which key you are playing in is very important for a bass guitar player, as you will not make any progress until you can play with other members of a band. The key is the selection of notes you can choose from when you compose a song or solo. If you were playing in the key of G major, you would be using the notes G A B C D E F# and G.

It is important to learn the major scale as it provides the notes for many works in popular music. To understand the major scale, you need to understand its construction. One important aspect of scales is the spaces between the notes. These spaces are called intervals and give the scale its unique character. The intervals consist of whole steps and half steps. A whole step has the space of one fret between the notes on the guitar fretboard, and a half step is has no frets between the notes.

The G major scale begins on the third fret of the E string, and the first two intervals are whole steps. As you can see from the diagram, the notes E and F do not have a fret between them, so the interval is a half step. The next three intervals are whole steps, and the final interval is a half step.

The series of whole steps and half steps in the major scale are usually written using initials: W W H W W W H.

Starting on any natural note on the guitar and counting the intervals will give you the note’s major scale. Here are the notes in the G major scale as they are found on the E string:

When we actually play the bass, we play the scale across several strings rather than along just one string, so here is what the G major scale looks like, as it would be played on the E A and D strings.

Learn the G major scale as it is written above because the fingering pattern can be moved up the guitar neck to play the major scale in any key, and you can move the fingering pattern to any position of the fretboard to play in any key. This is a way for your fingers to remember the sequence of intervals.

Here is the same pattern moved to begin on the fifth fret. This is the A major scale.

Here is the C major scale, which is the same pattern starting on the A string:

Now for the minor scale patterns starting on the same fret. As a broad generalization, music written in a major key is “happy” and music in a minor key is “sad”. The intervals in the minor scale are W H W W H W W.

Here is the G minor scale:

Here is the C minor scale:

The minor scales above are called “natural minor” scales. There are two other minor scales – the “harmonic minor” and the “melodic minor”.

The harmonic minor scale has a raised seventh note. To explain the difference in the minor scales, here are the notes in the G natural minor scale: G A Bb C D D# F G.

The notes in the G harmonic minor scale are G A Bb C D D# F# G. Here is the basic fingering pattern of the harmonic minor scale.

The melodic minor scale is slightly more complex. When you are playing up the scale, you raise the sixth and seventh notes: G A Bb C D E F# G. When you play down the scale, you simply play the natural minor scale.

Here is the fingering for the melodic minor scale.

As with lead guitar scales, when you practice on your bass you will also be using slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs and other techniques. Which techniques you specialize in will depend on the genre of music you are interested in.

You will also be making use of the most popular of the rock guitar scales – the major pentatonic. This scale contains only five notes, and one of the advantages of learning it is its user-friendliness. Any combination of notes in the pentatonic scale will sound pleasing together, thus eliminating the stress of making mistakes that are painfully obvious to your audience. To vary the sound of your playing, you can vary where you play the scale on the fretboard.

The diagrams below show the major pentatonic in five different positions on the fretboard. These diagrams do not refer to the scale in any particular key. To use these scale positions, you need to know the key of the song you are working on. Next, find the root note of your key. The root note of the pentatonic pattern is shown in red in these diagrams. If you want to play in the key of G major using the pattern shown in the first diagram, you place the second finger of your left hand on the third fret of the E string. The note at this fret is G. You can use the root notes shown in red as a guide while you are improvising or composing using these scale patterns.

The second position for playing the major pentatonic scale is two frets above the first position.

To find the next position, move your hand three frets above the second position so that the root note is on the third string as shown below.

The fourth position is another two frets up the fretboard with the root note occurring at two frets.

The final position is three frets further up the neck, with the root again in two places.

To begin working with these major pentatonic scale positions, make sure you understand how they work. Experiment with using different root notes. Once you have an understanding of the diagrams in your head, practice the positions so they become second nature for your fingers.

Understanding Bass Guitar Scales

When explaining to beginners about guitar scales tabs often add confusion, so I have used charts to illustrate some aspects of scales.

The chromatic scale

There are 12 notes in music. These are represented by the chromatic scale: A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab. The # indicates a sharp, and the b indicates a flat.

The term scale refers to the progression of notes between octaves. In the example of the chromatic scale, above, the notes proceed from the note A to the A an octave higher. The spaces between notes are called intervals. These intervals are called tones and semitones. On the guitar, one fret is a semitone, two frets is a tone. The chromatic scale consists of 12 semitones.

By beginning at the any one of the open strings, and playing the note on each of the frets all the way up the guitar neck, you can play a chromatic scale. If you begin on the open sixth string, and play all the way up to the twelfth fret you will have played a chromatic scale covering one octave.

In the above example, the notes follow each other along one string. In the modes and scales in the guitar scales chart below, the notes follow each other across all the strings on the guitar, within the limits of four frets. No matter where on the fretboard you are playing, four frets is a comfortable span for anybody’s fingers.

The Major Scale and the Modes

The chromatic scale is just a collection of all the notes it is possible to use. The scales you will be learning will consist of either seven, or sometimes, five notes, which will be a mix of the notes found in the chromatic scale. There are nine scales on the guitar, which are popularly used for guitar solos:

• The Ionian Mode (The Major Scale)
• The Dorian Mode
• The Phrygian Mode
• The Lydian Mode
• The Mixolydian Mode
• The Aeolian Mode (The Natural Minor Scale)
• The Locrian Mode
• The Minor Pentatonic Scale
• The Blues Scale

The modes are based on the major scale and are generated from different degrees of the scale. The degrees are simple the names of the notes in a scale as they relate to the “tonic” – the first note of the scale. In the F major scale, F is both the tonic and the first degree.

For the purposes of this tutorial, I will be using the F major scale and the modes derived from it. The reason I use the F major scale is that F is the lowest fretted note on the guitar.

The Ionian mode/major scale intervals are tone – tone -semitone – tone – tone – tone – semitone

Here are the notes of the F major scale: F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E

Wild World by Cat Stevens, Third Stone from the Sun by Jimi Hendrix and La Bamba by Ritchie Valens are all songs that will help you to learn to play in the major scale.

The Dorian mode begins at the second degree of the major scale. The intervals in this mode are tone – semitone – tone – tone – tone – semitone – tone

Here are the notes of the Dorian mode as it relates to the F major scale: G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F

The Phrygian mode begins at the third degree of the major scale. The intervals are semitone -tone -tone – tone -semitone – tone – tone

Here are the notes of the Phrygian mode as it relates to the F major scale: A-Bb-C-D-E-F-G

The Lydian mode begins at the fourth degree of the major scale. The intervals are tone – tone – tone – semitone – tone – tone – semitone

Here are the notes of the Lydian mode as it relates to the F major scale: Bb-C-D-E-F-G-A

The Mixolydian mode begins at the fifth degree of the major scale. The intervals for this mode are tone – tone – semitone – tone – tone – semitone – tone

Here are the notes of the Mixolydian mode as it relates to the F major scale: C-D-E-F-G-A-Bb

The Aeolian mode/Natural Minor Scale begins at the sixth degree of the major scale. The intervals in this mode are tone – semitone – tone – tone – semitone – tone – tone

Here are the notes of the Aeolian mode as it relates to the F major scale: D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C

If you want to practice working in the minor scale, you could experiment with a few well-known songs. Black Magic Woman by Santana, Hotel California by The Eagles, and Dream On by Aerosmith will all help you to gain an understanding of the minor scale.

The Locrian mode begins at the seventh degree of the major scale. The intervals are semitone – tone – tone – semitone – tone – tone – tone

Here are the notes of the Locrian mode as it relates to the F major scale: E-F-G-A-Bb-C-D

The minor pentatonic scale has only five notes, and is the most important of the beginner guitar scales. Its intervals are tone+semitone – tone – tone – tone+semitone – tone

The notes of the minor pentatonic scale in F are F-G#-Bb-C-D#

This scale is used extensively by guitarists of all levels of experience to create solos, licks and riffs.

The blues scale is the same as the minor pentatonic but with six notes. The extra note is a flattened fifth, which gives the blues, scale its characteristic sound. The intervals are tone+semitone – tone – semitone – semitone – tone+semitone – tone

The notes of the blues scale in F are F-G#-Bb-B-C-D#

The blues scale is the minor pentatonic with the addition of a flattened fifth – the blue note.

A Guitar Scales Chart for Beginners

There are many ways to approach blues guitar soloing, and one alternative to the minor pentatonic is the Mixolydian scale, which is almost the same as the major scale. One difference is that the root note of the Mixolydian is the fifth of the key you are working with, so in the key of E the scale starts at B. The other difference is the Myxolidian has a flattened seventh.

Here’s a video showing how to use the Mixolydian scale:

One of the problems with discussing blues guitar playing is that we start explaining things using theoretical terms, and this makes translating theory to playing music a little difficult. If getting your head around scales and modes does not seem like playing blues to you, then you should just learn some riffs and turnarounds, and the twelve bar blues progression. After a little while you will see where to use seventh chords, and where to flatten notes.

Here is a video lesson on turnarounds in the key of E:

This lesson should give you what you need to start imitating the playing you hear on blues guitar records. But do not try to be too exact, note-for-note renderings of other people’s solos will sharpen your ear, but they will not help you with improvising. The essence of learning to make up your own music is to start fooling around with what you are listening to, and adding your own variations.

Here is Justin Sandercoe on improvisation:

Blues Guitar – The Basics

If you would like to learn to write your own songs and to improvise guitar solos, an understanding of scales in guitar music will be crucial.

Practising scales will change the way you hear music. If you practise every day, you will automatically begin to recognize how note patterns sound, and eventually you will be able to tell which scale these patterns belong to.

A very important aspect of learning guitar scales is how it helps you physical relationship with your instrument. Your hands will be able to move faster and with more precision after some time of regular scale practice.

This video will take you through some scales without giving you note names so that you can begin playing right away. The teacher, Peter Vogel, does tell you the names of the scales and the close up shots of his hands will be a help in learning HOW to play, that is, the way to hold the pick and how to strike the strings at the correct angle. Here is a guitar scales chart.

You could start your daily guitar practice with some scales to warm up your hands. Remember to use your metronome. Start slow and don’t increase the speed of the metronome until your hand feels at ease with the slow speed.

What Are Beginner Guitar Scales?

The A minor pentatonic scale has five notes: G A C D E

You can play it starting on the low E string at the fifth fret like this:

A C D E G A C D E G A C

Here’s the tab:

For variety you can also begin this scale pattern at the seventeenth fret. There are other patterns in other positions on the neck, but now you know the names of the notes you can find them for yourself.

Learn the pattern above for a start. Try working out some licks using these notes. You’ll be surprised what you can do with five notes!

To go further with improvisation, start listening to your favorite guitar players with a new ear. Pay attention to what they are doing. Take note of how their solos are composed: are they scale passages? Are they questions and answers? What does the guitarist do to fill twelve beats (for instance)? Does he bend the strings, use hammer-ons, all downstrokes? Try and analyze some guitar solos a little bit and apply them to your own playing.

If you use the A minor pentatonic scale as a basis for your musical education, you will be working with the notes A C D E and G all over the guitar neck. To help you make sense of your explorations, look at the job as learning the scale at the first, fifth and twelfth frets. Once you have mapped out the notes using those positions as starting points you will gradually be able to wander all over the fretboard instinctively. If you practice intensively. Remember if you decide to practice all the time it’s only necessary to keep it up for a shortish time. Maybe a year. If you ignore everything else in the world for a year and use your time to practice, you will be a REAL guitar player.

To start with your A minor scale, just go up and down in the three positions at first, without trying to connect them. This is boring stuff and you probably want to know how long you need to keep it up. The answer is a day or two AFTER you get bored with it. Once you can go up and down the scale in your three positions more or less in your sleep, it’s time to start working with note values. Using your metronome on a low setting, start playing your scale using triplets and quadruplets. If you don’t have any ideas on how to start, listen to some CD’s or go into your bookmarked free guitar lessons sites.

Once you have some note patterns to work with you can mix them up and start mixing up the positions you are playing at. You can move between places on the fretboard using slides, bends and hammer-ons.

This YouTube video shows you some A minor pentatonic licks:

Learn the A Minor Pentatonic for Improvising

CLICK FOR FULL SIZE CHART OF THE WHOLE NOTES ON THE GUITAR

The easiest way to learn the notes on the guitar fretboard is with the help of a guitar fretboard chart. With a chart, the fretboard will become a system of interlinking patterns based on twelve notes – counting the sharps and flats. These patterns become easier to learn the more you practice them and begin to recognize the relationships between them.

As an experiment, use this guitar fretboard chart to find some C major chords. The notes are G, C and E. Once you get the hang of the way the notes are found on the guitar, you can find the notes for other chords. Try playing some of the note combinations to see how different the same chord sounds at different positions on the fretboard.

If you spend some time locating the scales and chords on the guitar, you should be familiar with the notes in one or two positions on the fretboard. The fact that there are some blank areas should not matter, the more you practice, the more blanks you will fill in.

It won’t be necessary to memorize the positions of the notes as you play chords and scales; after practicing for a while, your hand will automatically go to the correct place to find a note without your brain needing to remember anything. It might help to bear in mind that many guitar players never learn to read music. Although reading helps with learning and teaching the guitar, blues and flamenco players traditionally learnt where to put their fingers on the guitar by learning to play songs. As their repertoire expanded, so did their ability to improvise and compose songs.

We already know there are only twelve notes to be found on the guitar fretboard, and another fact that simplifies learning the notes is that the sequence of notes begins again at the twelfth fret: the open guitar strings sound the notes E A D G B E and the notes at the twelfth fret are also E A D G B E.

It will help with your exploration of the guitar fretboard to remember that at the fifth fret the notes are: A D G C E A. Okay, so far we have the names of the notes at three positions on the fretboard without even learning any chords or scales.

Playing chords and scales is not the only way to learn the notes on the guitar fretboard. Writing notes out on a blank fretboard diagram will also help.

One technique that will help you to learn the notes on the guitar is to sing the notes as you are playing them. If you don’t think of yourself as a singer you might think that this method is not for you, but it’s just a matter of getting used to the new feeling of singing while you play.

Singing the notes you are playing will take your guitar practice to a new level. It will not only help you to locate the notes on the guitar but will loosen you up so that you feel your guitar playing in your whole body. You will also learn to play by ear if you persevere with your singing.

The thing with knowing the notes on the guitar fretboard is, it will enable you to know where you are going when you are improvising or learning a song or instrumental piece from sheet music. Singing as you play will help a great deal with “seeing” the notes a split second before you play them. If you can’t bring yourself to sing out loud or if you don’t want to disturb other people in your house, you could try singing the notes inside your head.

Another thing you could try playing what you hear on the radio or on CDs. You don’t have to get too intense about it, just fool around until you get an approximation of the lick or melody you heard, then try to see where your version is not sounding right. This will be another helpful way to learn to play guitar notes.

Singing the notes as you learn them will definitely help with memorizing the guitar neck notes, so give it a try, and remember that your singing does not need to sound great to other people; it’s a tool for your learning music.

You could use singing to help you learn intervals so, if you can get yourself into a room where you will not be disturbed, you can begin with the E major scale. Start by playing the open sixth string, which is the note E. Play it and sing it till your vocalizing starts to sound more confident. Now you can work on a major second interval by playing and singing the note at the second fret on the sixth string (the note F#) and going back and forth between the open string and the second fret.

This video from guitarlessons365.com illustrates some key points on learning the fretboard:

Learn The Notes on the Guitar Fretboard

Understanding Guitar Scales