Ukulele Scales Part 1: Major Scale
June 25, 2008
When I did my ukulele scales posts there were a few people who didn’t have a clue what it was all about. So, I thought I’d go back to basics and cover it from there.
The most common scale in all music is the major scale. You’ll hear it all over the place (pretty much every nursery rhyme, Christmas carol and national anthem uses it) and it’s the basis of all chords.
The major scale creates a particular pattern on the ukulele. This pattern can be moved up and down the neck depending on which key you play in.
C Major Scale
The most important note to concentrate on is the root note – the first one played and the last one played. For example, The C major scale starts on the open C string and ends on the A string, third fret. The pattern looks like this on the fretboard:
The tab looks like this:
And sounds like this:
There are lots of ways you can use the major scale. One is for improvising a solo. In the following snippet, I’m improvising a little melody with the chords C, F and G and using only notes in the major scale pattern.
D Major Scale
For the D major scale, you use exactly the same pattern but start on a D note (C string second fret) and end on a D note (A string, fifth fret). Giving you this:
F Major Scale
Moving that pattern up and down the fretboard will give you a major scale wherever you use it. Whichever key you want to play the major scale in, find that note on the C string and start the pattern from there.
For example, to get the F major scale, you start the scale pattern on the fifth fret of the c string which gives you this pattern:
This tab:
And sounds like this:
Thanks, I was one of the people who expressed confusion.
I hope it made more sense this time, Jon.
Yeah, it did. I’ve got two weeks off coming up shortly. I intend to devote the time to intensive practice. I haven’t had any time to learn anything new in months. I have just enough practice time to keep up my chops on the stuff I already know. By the way, I wrote something in defense of Julia Nunes that, on sober reflection, sounded slightly hostile. Let me make it clear that this site is fabulous and you are a great person. I’ve bought two of your e books and saved all of your finger picking emails, That’s what I’ll be studying on my vacation. I love learning new stuff on the ukulele, I just want to keep it silly.
I was also one of the few who expressed confusion. You’ll be pleased to hear that I completely understand now. Keep up the great work on the site.
Ukuleles Represent
Thanks! Ii was very confused with the other scales, I need see the tabs with numbers.
Jon: Don’t worry about it. No offence taken. Have fun with your ukulele holiday.
rilrod: Glad it helped.
lillibit: Yeah, I like tabs, too. But some people prefer to see a fretboard layout.
so how come from the d scale to the f scale it went up 3 frets and not 4? i figured 2 frets to E scale and 2 frets to F scales
E to F is a half step
Evan: Ryan is spot on. F is only one fret up from from E.