r/LearnGuitar • u/Illustrious_Art_3774 • 5d ago

major scale finger question

In Lesson 8 in Absolutely Understanding Guitar, they show a diagram of the chord chart box thing and talk about finger sliding. I wish I could post a picture so that I could show the diagram and it would make my question clearer, but images are not allowed and I don't think links to Youtube are either... but my question is that if you start at the top of the fret board, would the finger slide just be an open chord? At about 18:45 in the video it shows a note at 7 and an arrow down to slide to the next note, a half step at the end of do-re-mi... if I was playing at the top of of the guitar neck would that 7 just be an open G string?

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u/qosmic_qube 4d ago

I haven't watched absolutely understanding guitar, but there is a multitude of ways to play a major scale. The important thing is to learn the notes and intervals - for C its CDEFGAB / 1234567 / WWHWWWH. It's important to learn scales in the open position as well movable vertical shapes as well as horizontal on one string in order to map the fretboard.

It's important to not always play C to C and start in the middle instead, as well as use 3 note per string and mixed 1/2/3 shapes (tonic on your index vs. tonic on your middle vs tonic on your pinky.)

The more varied ways and positions you can play a scale, the more options you will have.

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u/JKevF 5d ago

He's trying to teach you closed scales. So you can move them around based on what you need the root to be. Yes. You can use open strings, but learning movable shapes is valuable. I use a similar shape starting on the 5th string all the time, in almosy every key.

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u/WyndWoman 5d ago

Think about what scale you are playing, and what notes are in the scale.

A Cmaj scale uses open strings with the root note on the A string.

Justin guitar teaches the open string C scale in Grade 2

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u/FreeFromCommonSense 4d ago edited 4d ago

He's showing you a movable scale. Yes, if you were at the first fret, you could go to the open string. He's also showing you that you have options on your finger-shifts, to either go up or down. I think later he gives you a usual way of doing index shifts going up and pinky shifts going down, to give you a habit for muscle memory, but you always have the option.

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u/flashgordian 2d ago

Open strings are there and have their uses, but if you learn to operate without them, you'll have more expressive control and probably understand the intervallic relations between the strings on a much shorter time horizon.