CAGED Part 2: The Major Scale

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The Major Scale in All 5 CAGED Positions

The next step is to learn the major scale in all 5 CAGED positions. To form the major scale for a CAGED position, we take the position with just the root notes then add the other notes of the major scale to that position.

This forms the 5 positions of the major scale as follows:

For each of these, the red dot is the root note as it was when we were looking at our barre chords and will indicate the key of the major scale. For example if you play one of these patterns at a fret where the red dots would be A then you would be playing A major.

If you are not familiar with the major scale, I recommend reading about it at our major scale lesson.

You should memorize and become familiar with all of these major scale patterns. In order to do this I recommend practicing the scale ascending and descending and do this with great repetition. When you do this you should start the scale at the lowest root note, ascend to the top, descend to the bottom then ascend to the root note again. By starting and finishing on the root note this should help ingrain the sound of the major scale. You should then practice sequences of these patterns. You can read about this in our page on scale sequences. After this you can start to come up with licks and phrases on the scale and start to play over backing tracks. You can find backing tracks for the major scale at our major scale backing tracks resource.

In the next section we will see how to view each of these positions in terms of intervals that will allow you to construct any scale or arpeggio all the way up the neck.

>> Goto CAGED Part 3: The Intervals
<< Goto CAGED Part 1: The CAGED System

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