How To Read Guitar Scale Diagrams

Scale diagrams are an easy and effective way of learning how to play new scales. A scale diagram is essentially just a grid. But viewing the grid in comparison to the guitar neck is what makes it useful. Take a look at the following diagram.

As shown, the vertical lines represent the 6 guitar strings, while the horizontal lines represent the guitar frets with the top most horizontal line being the guitar nut. This is a graphic representation of the guitar neck. Picture your guitar pointed to the sky with the strings facing you.

By adding circles to the diagram we now have information on which strings need to be played and which frets need to be fretted.

The above demonstrates the popular pentatonic scale, one of the first scales guitarists learn. As indicated, you start with the top left dot which is really the lowest note of the scale, play the next dot on the same string and then move to the A string and play the top dot. This pattern continues until you reach the highest note of the scale, where you turn around and play the same scale but backwards.

Three of the dots have red outlines around them, which indicate that those notes are the root of the scale. This is not generally done for scale diagrams but its important for guitarists to learn where the root notes are in scales, so they will be used here.

The following is a tab file of the above scale. For this example we will use the key of A, which means all of the dots with red outlines will land on the note A. This is how it would be played.

D U D U ---> etc.
e:---------------------5-8-5---------------------|
B:-----------------5-8-------8-5-----------------|
G:-------------5-7---------------7-5-------------|
D:---------5-7-----------------------7-5---------|
A:-----5-7-------------------------------7-5-----|
E:-5-8---------------------------------------8-5-|

If you haven't already noticed, scale diagrams are very similar to chord diagrams. The grids and layouts are all the same, it is just how you play them is different. You play all the notes together in chord diagrams, while you play the notes in sequence in a scale diagram. To learn more about chord diagrams visit our lesson here.

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Your First Scale / The Pentatonic Scale

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How To Build A Barre Chord

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Tuning The Rest Of The Guitar

The same method is used to tune the next two strings, the D string and the G string. Fret the 5th fret on the A string and that gives the note D, you can now tune your D string in comparison to the 5th fret of the A string. Once the D string is tuned, do the same for the G string. Fret the 5th fret on the D string and that gives the Note G and you can now tune the G string. The B string is tuned with the same method but instead of fretting the 5th fret of the G string, you fret the 4th and tune in comparison to the 4th fret, not the 5th. You should now just have the High E string to tune. In this case, we go back to the original method of fretting in comparison to the 5th fret of the previous string. The following diagram will help illustrate the entire tuning process. You should now be able to tune your guitar. It may take a while for a beginner but you should get it. If your having trouble, read through the material again. The above diagram should illustrate the method clea...

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