A scale is a set of notes that evoke a certain color or emotion, and from scales, melodies are built. A melody is the unique single-note motif of any song, usually memorable or catchy in some way.
There are many different kinds of scales but only a few basic essential scales from which most genres of music are built. The amount of notes in a single scale can vary, but the first scales we will be looking at are five-note scales known as pentatonic scales.
Just like chords, scales can be either major or minor. On this scales sheet, the minor pentatonic is demonstrated first as it is the simplest pattern of all the scales.
You can also think of a scale as a pattern or shape, just like chords. Below are the same scales as above, but written in the fretboard grid format typically used for representing chords.
In the diagrams below, the circled numbers represent the scale degree of the note. Scale degrees are simply the notes in a scale numbered beginning at 1. The first scale degree is the root of the scale, represented as a letter R below. Note that these scale degree numbers are not related to fingering, which is what these numbers represented in previous lessons. For proper finger for these scales, refer to the tablature page above.
