Guitar Scales Chart

Infinite Guitar's guitar scales chart shows any scale on the whole fretboard at once, from the open strings to the 15th fret. Pick a root note and a scale and every note lights up on the neck, with the root in white so you always know where home is. It's a free scale finder that runs right in your browser, and you can press play to hear the scale up and down.

How to use the guitar scales chart

1. Pick a root and a scale. The root is the note the scale starts and ends on, like the A in A minor pentatonic. Choose from 12 roots and 12 scales under the neck.
2. Read the neck. The high E string is on top, the same way guitar tab reads, and the fret numbers run along the bottom. Every dot is a note in the scale. On a phone the neck stands up, with the nut at the top.
3. Choose what the dots show. Notes gives you the note names, Intervals shows where each note sits in the scale (1, ♭3, 5 and so on), and Dots hides the labels so you can test yourself.
4. Color every step. Set Colors to Every step and each scale step gets its own color, so you can see where the 3rds, 5ths and 7ths fall across the neck.
5. Show positions. Press Show positions to see the scale as five box shapes. Click a box to light it up on the neck, then press play to hear just that position.
6. Hear it. Press play and the scale loops from the root up an octave and back down until you pause it. Set the tempo with the minus and plus buttons next to play, turn on Swing for a long-short blues and jazz feel, or tap any note on the neck to hear it on its own.

The most useful guitar scales

These twelve scales cover almost everything you'll hear in rock, blues, pop, country, jazz and metal. Each one is a pattern of whole and half steps, written here as a formula of intervals counted up from the root.

• Minor pentatonic (1 ♭3 4 5 ♭7): five notes and the first scale most guitarists learn. It's the sound of countless blues and rock solos, and it works over minor chords and most blues progressions. Lucas Fowler's Pentatonic Pathways is a great place to start.
• Major pentatonic (1 2 3 5 6): the brighter side of the pentatonic, all over country, pop and southern rock. It uses the same five shapes as the minor pentatonic: C major pentatonic has exactly the same notes as A minor pentatonic.
• Blues (1 ♭3 4 ♭5 5 ♭7): the minor pentatonic plus one extra note, the flat 5th, often called the blue note.
• Major (1 2 3 4 5 6 7): the do re mi scale and the foundation of Western music. Every chord in a major key is built from it. Nick Granville breaks it down in Major Scales Simplified.
• Natural minor (1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 ♭7): the major scale started from its 6th note, also called the Aeolian mode. Dark and melodic, common in rock ballads and metal.
• Harmonic minor (1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 7): natural minor with a raised 7th, which gives it an exotic, neoclassical sound.
• Melodic minor (1 2 ♭3 4 5 6 7): a minor scale with a major 6th and 7th, a favorite in jazz.
• The modes: Dorian (minor with a natural 6th, great for funk and Latin rock), Phrygian (minor with a ♭2, Spanish and metal), Lydian (major with a ♯4, dreamy), Mixolydian (major with a ♭7, blues rock) and Locrian (♭2 and ♭5, over half-diminished chords). Mike Salow gives each one its own licks in Licking Up the Modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian.

Guitar scale positions

Most guitarists learn a scale as five box shapes, called positions, that link together up the neck. In this chart, position 1 starts on the root on the lowest string (the low E on a six-string), and each next position starts on a scale note a little further up that string. Once a box would run past the 15th fret it wraps back down an octave, so you'll always see all five.

Learn one position until you can play it without looking, then add the next one and practice moving between them. Chris Feener shows how to connect them all in Traversing the Pentatonic Scale, and his Unlock the Fretboard lesson takes the same idea across the whole neck.

How to practice guitar scales

• Start slow, with a metronome. Play each note cleanly at a tempo you can manage, then speed up a few bpm at a time with our online metronome.
• Start and end on the root. It trains your ear to hear where the scale resolves. The white dots show you every root on the neck.
• Say the notes or intervals. Switch the dots to Notes or Intervals and name each one as you play it, then switch to Dots and test yourself.
• Play in sequences. Groups of three or four notes turn a scale into real musical lines. Richard Lundmark walks you through them in Sequencing Pentatonics.
• Aim for chord tones. Land on the root, 3rd and 5th of the chord you're playing over and your solos will sound like they belong. Try Note Targeting in Pentatonics.
• Play over music. Put on one of our guitar backing tracks in the same key and improvise with the scale.

Learn guitar scales with a teacher

See them played and try them yourself with these video lessons from the Infinite Guitar library:

Pentatonic Pathways - Intro to the Scale Free lesson · Lucas Fowler Major Scales Simplified Nick Granville Visualizing Modes - Introduction Al Joseph Solving Mode Mysteries - Intro & Minor Modes Chris Feener

Guitar scales FAQ

Before you play, make sure you're in tune with our online guitar tuner. Look up the chords that go with your scale in the guitar chord chart, or jump into our free guitar lessons.