Learn To Read Major and Minor Guitar Scale Box Diagrams
Guitar scale boxes are a useful way to represent all the information you need to know about a scale on one easy to read diagram.
The horizontal lines on the box diagrams represent frets and the vertical lines represent strings.
The vertical line furthest to the left is the Low E string. The vertical line second from the left is the A string and so on.
This scale shape is movable up and down the guitar neck, similar to the way a barre chord can be moved.
The notes highlighted in blue are the root notes for the scale. The root note tells you what key the major scale is in and where on the fretboard the box diagram is representing.
So, for example if the root note was G then the blue note on the scale diagram would be G (i.e. The blue note on the low E string would be on the third fret).
Major Guitar Scale Box Diagram
The major scale is generally a brighter, “happier” sounding guitar scale. Depending on how the scale is used, this may not always be the case, but it generally lends itself to happier sounding songs.
When you first learn guitar scales, start by playing from the lowest note to the highest note on the box scale diagram.
When you’re more familiar with the scale, try playing around with the scale more and see how it sounds when you do different things to it.
For example, try playing every other note or play four notes, then go back three, then play four more, until you make it through the entire scale. Just make up little patterns and see if you can play them comfortably.
Even just sitting around and picking random notes can be beneficial to making sure you are always selecting the notes out of the scale.
Minor Guitar Scale Box Diagram
The guitar box scale diagram above is for the minor guitar scale. As with the major scale, the box shape shown above is movable up and down the neck and the notes highlighted in blue indicate the root note of the scale. One major difference between this basic box form and the major scale is that the minor scale goes through five frets, rather than four.
This is a good scale to practice making small position shifts while playing. The sound of the minor guitar scale is a darker than the major guitar scale, though this is also not a guarantee.
Like the major scale, start by practicing just going up and down the scale until it becomes more familiar to you. This can be a little harder at first for some people because of the position shift in the middle of the scale. However, if you take the time to master that position shift, it will become so familiar that you will no longer even notice you are making it. This is a very useful confidence boost when songs come up that require similar position shifts.
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