Scales and modes

Practice it: Scale Runner

A scale is a set of notes counted from a root. Its sound comes from the distance between the root and each note, so the same notes against a different root sound like a different scale. Modes work this way, and it's why each mode below plays over a drone of its root.

Major and natural minor

Major steps whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half from its root. Natural minor steps whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole: major with a lowered 3rd, 6th and 7th. This page names every other scale the same way, by the degrees that differ from one of these two.

The modes

Play the notes of C major from D to D and you get D Dorian. Each mode starts major's notes on a different degree, which gives it its own mix of steps. Major is also called Ionian and natural minor Aeolian. Held against its own root, each of the other five is major or natural minor with one or two notes moved, and that note is the one to listen for.

Pentatonic and blues scales

Pentatonic scales leave out the two notes most likely to clash with the chords underneath. Minor pentatonic is natural minor without the 2nd and ♭6th. Major pentatonic is major without the 4th and 7th. A minor pentatonic and C major pentatonic are the same five notes from different roots.

The blues scale adds one note to minor pentatonic: the ♭5 between the 4th and the 5th. It sounds best on the way through to the 5th.

Highlighted: the ♭5, the blue note.

Harmonic and melodic minor

A harmonic minor is A natural minor with a raised 7th (G♯ where A natural minor has G). The 7th now sits a half step under the root and pulls toward it, which makes the key's V chord major.

A melodic minor is A natural minor with a raised 6th (F♯ where A natural minor has F) and a raised 7th (G♯ where A natural minor has G). Classical players lower both again on the way down. The Scale Runner plays the raised form both ways, as jazz players do.

Reading the Scale Runner

• Numbers on the dots are degrees from the root. R is the root and ♭3 is the minor 3rd. Roots are blue.
• Position: where on the neck the run is played. Each scale has the five positions guitarists learn, numbered the usual way: Position 1 has the root on the low string, and 2 to 5 follow it up the neck until the shapes repeat 12 frets higher. The list runs from the nut up, and the run's description adds each position's CAGED name, E, D, C, A or G, with an m when the scale has a ♭3. Locrian has no CAGED name.
• Box: every note in the position, one after another. Pentatonic positions have two notes on every string, the blues scale adds its ♭5 a fret above each 4, and seven-note positions have two or three on a string.
• 3 notes per string: three notes on every string, 18 in all. There are seven patterns, one starting on each note of the scale on the low string, and the list names each by that note. The hand shifts up the neck as the run climbs.
• Arpeggios: the chord on each degree in turn, three notes each (four with seventh chords), then the note the first chord started on.
• Thirds and Fourths: the position's notes in pairs a third apart (1 3, 2 4, 3 5) or a fourth apart (1 4, 2 5, 3 6), up to the top. Both need a seven-note scale.
• Groups of 2, 3 and 4: runs of two, three or four notes, each starting one note higher than the last: 1 2, 2 3, 3 4 or 1 2 3, 2 3 4, 3 4 5. They work on every scale, pentatonic and blues included.
• Direction: Down plays the pattern's mirror image, so groups of 3 come down 8 7 6, 7 6 5. Up and back down turns around at the top without playing the top note twice, and Down and back up does the same at the bottom.
• Range: which of the position's notes a run plays. Usual for this position, the default, plays a position the way it's drilled. In the E and A shapes, whose lowest root is on one of the two lowest strings, the run starts on that root, goes up to the top and comes back down to it, and the notes below the root are left out. The D, C and G shapes are drilled from the bottom of the box, so the run plays the whole position from its lowest note to its highest and back. Root to root plays from the lowest root to the highest in any position, and Whole position plays every note, edge to edge. Runs that go down first start from the other end of the range. The diagram dims the notes a run leaves out.
• Arpeggios follow the range too. Usual starts on the root's chord in the E and A shapes and on the lowest note's chord in the others. Going down from the highest root, as Usual does in the E and A shapes and Root to root does anywhere, each chord falls from its own root, and the run ends on the lowest root. Over the whole position, going down plays the rising chords in reverse. 3 notes per string patterns always start on the note their names say, so they have no Range setting.

How to practice

Pick a tempo where most runs come out clean: 90% of the notes hit, most of them in time. The speed trainer adds 5 BPM after 3 clean runs in a row and takes 5 off after any run that isn't clean, so it settles near your limit.