My Chord FinderTHE PRACTICE WORKBENCH
See the scale across your fretboard.
FROM THE DIAGRAM TO YOUR GUITAR
Use the four lessons below to read the map, choose a scale, play one shape and connect it to the next area of the neck. Every example opens in the tool above.
In standard tuning, strings 6 → 1 are E A D G B E. String 6 is the thick, low E; string 1 is the thin, high E. This tool starts with the high string on top. The View control reverses that display order.
The numbers across the neck are frets. 0 means an open string; fret 5 means press at the fifth fret. Moving one fret higher raises that string's pitch by one semitone.
Basis: Fender: string order and Fender: notes and frets.
The scale's tonic—the root selected here—is 1, shown in amber. Other octaves of that root are also 1. Choose Scale degrees to see each marked note's relationship to it.
We use the same-root major scale as the reference: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. ♭3 means one semitone below its major third. These are scale formulas, not finger numbers or a count of semitones.
Basis: Open Music Theory: major scales and degrees and minor scales. Natural minor can also be numbered 1–7 in its own scale; the flats here explicitly show its differences from parallel major.
For the other options in the tool: Open Music Theory: Dorian and Mixolydian; University of Puget Sound: blues scales. Harmonic minor is covered in the minor-scales reference above.
Start with the pattern you want to study. Major and natural minor have seven notes; pentatonic scales have five. These examples compare the note sets, without assigning a mood or promising that a scale fits every chord.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
C D E F G A B
A seven-note starting point for learning the numbered degrees. Its step pattern is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.
Basis: Open Music Theory: major scales.
1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 ♭7
A B C D E F G
Seven notes, with the third, sixth and seventh lowered relative to the same-root major scale. This example shares C major's notes, but starts from A. Natural minor differs from harmonic and melodic minor.
Basis: Open Music Theory: minor scales.
Explore the five-note major example and compare it with the full major scale.
Explore the five-note minor example and compare its notes with C major pentatonic.
A natural minor scale with a raised 6th, on a fretboard you can move between fret windows.
G major with a lowered 7th, from the open strings and two higher windows.
A natural minor with a raised 7th, in three windows built around the G♯–A pair.
A minor pentatonic with a chromatic ♭5, on the guitar-scales fretboard already on this page.
The A minor pentatonic route at frets 5–8 now has its own guide, with the string-by-string table and staged exercise.
Continue with the neighboring practice area and the A-to-B example in the pentatonic guide.