If your guitar is in reasonably good shape, your 12th fret should sound like the open string, but higher.
"Huh?"
Play the open string again.
Now press down on the 12th fret and compare. Same note, but higher.
"Got it."
Now, starting with your open E string, play every note on your way up to the 12th fret.
That's called a chromatic scale.
I can see your eyes are starting to bug out. Tomorrow we'll try a major scale...
6.
How'd you sleep?
"Like a rock."
Glad to hear it. Ready for a major scale?
"Ready."
Okay. You know do re mi, right?
"Doe a deer, a female deer..."
Exactly. Trust me here for a second,
the easiest way to learn the major scale is to sing do re mi out loud:
"DO RE MI FA SO LA TI DO"
You got it. The do re mi's ARE
the 8 notes of the major scale.
Now it's time to apply this to the first string of our guitar...
7.
Basic math question: which has more notes, the do re mi's or the fret board?
"The fret board has more notes than the do re mi's."
Right. This means that to play the
do re mi's (i.e. the major scale)
on one string, we play some of the frets and skip others.
Start with your open string as low do,
and finish with the high do on the 12th fret...
Working your way up the fret board, can you figure out which notes to hit and which notes to leave out?
Sing out loud might help:
do re mi fa so la ti do
can you match the notes of your voice to the notes on the string?
8.
Just to make sure you've got it,
let's spell it out:
open string = DO
(skip 1st fret)
2nd fret = RE
(skip 3rd fret)
4th fret = MI
5th fret = FA
(skip 6th fret)
7th fret = SO
(skip 8th fret)
9th fret = LA
(skip 10th fret)
11th fret = TI
12th fret = DO
9.
If you do this a few times it will start to sink it, it really will.
From the low E to the high E, there are eight notes in this scale, that's why we call it an octave.
"Okay, but shouldn't I be playing the other strings and learning chords and whatnot?"
Yeah, definitely. This is just one way to get started. You can keep going whenever you're ready.
