No matter what key you are playing in, knowing which frets to use on the guitar is pivotal in your playing ability. Memorizing scale shapes is a great way to remember where your fingers should go.

What is a scale shape?

Scales shapes are patterns created on the fretboard when you play out a scale. Before we get into scale shapes, you need to know that major and minor scales are derived from a series of major and minor intervals. This means that there is a sequence of intervals used in building any scale. These are as follows:

Major: M M m M M M m
Minor: M m M M m M M

Now the relation between a major or minor interval to the fretboard, is

One minor interval= 1 fret
One major interval= 2 frets

(for the sake of this exercise: — represents a string; | represents a fret; and the capitol letter at the beginning represents which string)

Now if we were to play our scale on one string, we would get:

Major: 2:2:1:2:2:2:1
Or E |–1–|—-|–2–|—-|–3–|–4–|—-|–5–|—-|–6–|—-|–7–|–8–|

Minor: 2:1:2:2:1:2:2
Or E |–1–|—-|–2–|–3–|—-|–4–|—-|–5–|–6–|—-|–7–|—-|–8–|

But playing on one string can be very limiting, we want to be able to utilize the entire guitar right, meaning all of the strings, and that is where scale shapes com into play. A major scale shape plays that same sequence, but utilizes all six strings.

A major scale shape on the guitar would look like this:

E ||—–|–7–|–1–|——|—–|
B ||—–|–5–|——|-6—|—–|
G ||–2–|—–|–3–|–4–|—–|
D ||–6–|—–|–7–|–1–|—–|
A ||–3-|–4–|——|—5-|—–|
E ||—–|–1–|——|–2–|—–|

And a minor scale shape would look like this:

E ||——|–1–|—–|–2–|–3–|
B ||——|–5–|–6–|—–|–7–|
G ||–2–|–3–|——|–4–|—–|
D ||——|–7–|—–|–1–|——|
A ||——|–4–|—–|–5–|–6–|
E ||——|–1–|—–|–2–|–3–|

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