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In this post I will share with you 5 great exercises that you can practice on the guitar using a major scale. These exercises will help you to build technique, synchronize both your right and left hands and they will also help you to learn more about the harmony hidden in a major scale!

Keep in mind that once you understand the concepts behind these exercises, you can apply them to any scale/mode that you are willing to practice and explore.

This time we will be working with the C Major scale, which is the mother, the princess, the queen, the empress of all scales! So make sure that you already know how to play the C Major scale on the guitar in 2 octaves and in the 7th position:

I made some backing tracks for you, so you can have more fun practicing the scales instead of just using a boring metronome click.

Major Scale in 3rds

For this first exercise, we will be playing the C major scale on the guitar using 3rds: instead of just playing the scale up and down, we will start on the 1st degree, skip the second and play the 3rd, then play the next degree, skip the very next note and play the 3rd of this degree and so on.

It’s a good ideia to start memorizing the qualities (major or minor) of the 3rds built on each degree of a major scale. Take a look at this table:

Degree	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
Note	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
Quality of the 3rd	M	m	m	M	M	m	m

Major Scale in 6ths

In this second example we will apply the same concept from the 1st one, but instead of playing 3rds, we will be playing 6ths. So, we start on the 1st degree, play it’s 6th , go to the next degree and play it’s 6th and so on.

Let’s see what we’ve got here in terms of qualities of the 6ths for each degree of the scale:

Degree	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
Note	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
Quality of the 6th	M	M	m	M	M	m	m

3-Note Pattern

In this third example we will be using the triplet subdivision and will play the first 3 notes of the scale starting on the 1st degree, move to the next degree and play the next 3 notes, move to the 3rd degree and play the next three notes and so on.

4-Note Pattern

This 4th exercise uses the same logic as the previous one, but we will be using 16th notes and playing a sequence of 4 notes.

7th Arpeggios

This 5th example is the most challenging, so start slowly and gradually build the speed. You can use the metronome or the slower version of the backing track that you can find here.

Basically we will be playing 7th arpeggios of each degree of the scale: M7, m7, m7, M7, 7, m7, m7b5 and M7 again, we are repeating the same 1st degree here. And as well as playing the ascending pattern, we will play the descending version.

Degree	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
Note	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
7th Chord Type	M7	m7	m7	M7	7	m7	m7b5

If you’re interested in more guitar arpeggios exercises (that are pretty fun to play), check this!

Conclusion

Let me give you some tips for practicing guitar scales:

• Practice scales everyday
• Learn one exercise at a time and as soon as you feel more comfortable, move to the next one and keep practicing the previous patterns
• Practice these exercises in 12 keys
• Start slowly, gradually build the speed
• Use a metronome or these backing tracks and make sure to keep a good time feel
• Care more about using the proper technique and playing with a good tone
• Have fun 🙂

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