C Major Scale — Guitar

The notes

The C major scale is C, D, E, F, G, A, B.

You may also see it called Ionian.

On the staff

On a treble staff, the C major scale is written C D E F G A B.

This is one octave of the C major scale, written on the treble clef. Guitar and bass music is written an octave higher than it sounds, and the small 8 under the clef is the sign for that.

Why the C major scale has no sharps or flats

A scale is a pattern of steps, and this one is T T S T T T S: a tone, a tone, a semitone, and so on. S stands for a semitone, the distance of one fret or one key. T stands for a tone, which is two semitones. The pattern is what gives C major its sound, and it stays the same whichever note you start on.

The second rule is that a seven-note scale uses each letter name once, from A to G, so its seven notes take seven different letters. That is why C major is spelled the way it is, rather than with whichever accidental looks tidier.

Together, the two rules leave no room for choice, and here they ask for no accidentals at all. C major is the one arrangement of this pattern that fits the plain letters exactly, which is why it is written with no sharps or flats.

The C major scale needs no sharps or flats, because every letter already falls where the T T S T T T S pattern of steps needs it.

The pattern of steps is the part of a scale that never changes. The letter names take sharps or flats to fit that pattern, and a key signature is a record of those sharps or flats.

On the piano

The keyboard shows the same seven notes as a shape you can see. The coloured keys are the C major scale, and you can click any key to hear it.

C major scale on the whole neck

84 notes of the C major scale are marked across six strings.

This is every place the notes of the C major scale fall on the guitar, with each note's name and its scale degree. The roots are marked so you can find your bearings.

Position by position

Position 1 — starts on the 4

Position 2 — starts on the 5

Position 3 — starts on the 6

Position 4 — starts on the 7

Position 5 — starts on the 1

Position 6 — starts on the 2

Position 7 — starts on the 3

The C major scale has seven playable positions, at frets 1–5, 3–7, 5–9, 7–11, 8–12, 10–14 and 12–16.

Each shape starts on a different degree of the scale and fits inside five frets, so your hand can play all of it without moving.

One climb up the neck

The climb runs from fret 8 to fret 22 and plays 23 notes.

This is one path from the lowest root to the top of the neck, and it plays each note once, never on two strings. It takes a different number of notes on different strings. The widest stretch on any one string is five frets.