Help
About The Guitar Scales
The Guitar Scales works out scales, chords and exercises for the instrument and tuning you play: guitar, bass, ukulele, mandolin and banjo, in standard and alternate tunings. Pick a key and a scale and see it on the fretboard; see every chord in that key with the shapes to play it; then practise with exercises that play along with you, from a simple run to a roll over a chord.
Everything is worked out for you rather than looked up in a chart, so it all follows your choices: change the tuning, the key or the scale shape and the fretboard, the chords, the tab and the exercises change with it.
The lessons and the music features are free to use without an account. Signing in with Google lets you keep your own dashboards, presets and patterns, and use them on any device.
The Guitar Scales in 3 minutes
A quick walk through the whole site: a scale on the fretboard, the chords of a key, an exercise playing, the lessons, and the dashboards.
The Guitar Scales works out scales, chords and exercises for your instrument and tuning, so you can see how they fit together and practise them. This is the place to start.
What you can do
- Scales in any key on your instrument: the seven modes of the major scale, and exotic scales such as Hijaz, Hungarian Gypsy, Hirajoshi and the Japanese pentatonic, shown as CAGED shapes, 3 or 4 notes per string, or across the whole neck, with tab and playback.
- Chord Lookup: any chord by root and type, with every shape for your tuning, ranked so the most useful come first, and filtered by bass note, number of strings, and open or closed shapes.
- Build from scale: the chord on every degree of a key, from triads to sevenths, ninths and elevenths, each with its shapes and the scale that goes with it.
- Exercises: runs, sequences, arpeggios and intervals over a scale, or over a chord shape; string skipping, banjo rolls, crosspicking and fingerpicking; any time signature, note length and tempo, played along with the tab.
- Lessons: a ready-made page for every key and scale on each instrument, with its scale shapes, its chords, and progressions to practise, plus lessons on CAGED and notes-per-string shapes and on common progressions.
- Dashboards: your own pages for a song, a key or a practice routine, with scales, chords, exercises, chord progressions and lyrics in sections, built by hand, from a progression preset, or imported from a chord sheet.
- Sharing: a read-only link to any dashboard, and publishing to the community for others to copy.
- Your way of working: around 150 colour themes, the size of the page and of chord diagrams, full screen, colour-coded scale degrees, and power user mode for building your own scale patterns and exercises.
Suggested workflows
Some ways to get the most from the site:
- Learn a key: open Learn → Lessons, pick your instrument, tuning, key and scale, and work through its scale shapes, then its chords, then play along with its progressions.
- Learn a scale all over the neck: on the Scales page, learn one shape at a time (CAGED, or 3 notes per string), hear it with Play, then join the shapes up with the whole neck showing.
- Learn a song: import its chord sheet into a dashboard, check the chord shapes, and practise its progression on a loop until the changes are smooth.
- Build a practice routine: make a dashboard with a warm-up exercise, this week's key and a progression, and open it each time you practise.
- Solo over a song: put the song's chords in a dashboard, look at its Associated Scales, add one, and practise an exercise over each chord.
- Write a progression: in Chords → Build from scale, pick chords from a key, or start from a progression preset in a dashboard, then try it in another key or mode.
- Practise chord changes: in a progression, play an exercise over each chord in time, starting each one on the chord itself.
Learn a song from a chord sheet in 5 minutes
Learning a song in five minutes: importing its chord sheet, checking the chords, and practising a progression on a loop.
From a chord sheet to practising the song, in one sitting.
Build a practice routine
Building a practice routine dashboard: a warm-up, the week's key, and a progression, used every day.
A routine you can open each day keeps practice focused and steady.
What scale do I solo with?
What scale do I solo with? From a song's chords to its associated scales, then a scale and an exercise over the chords.
The site finds the scales that fit a song's chords, the first step to improvising over it.
Write a progression in any key
Writing a progression: picking chords from a key in Chords → Build from scale, making a progression, and moving it to another key.
Build from scale gives you the chords that work together, so writing in any key starts from solid ground.
Scales
The Scales page shows a scale on your instrument's fretboard, with its tab underneath. Choose the key and the scale, then the shape to play it in: a CAGED shape, 3 or 4 notes per string, or the whole neck. The offset moves the shape up or down the neck, and Play plays it note by note.
The notes are marked by their place in the scale: the root stands out, and with Color Scale Degrees on (Settings → Preferences) each degree has its own colour. The scale's numerals and chords are shown with it.
Power users can build their own shapes, by notes or frets per string, and save them as presets.
Find any scale on the fretboard
Picking a key and a scale, reading its notes and degrees, and finding the scale on the fretboard and in the tab underneath.
The Scales page shows any scale in any key on your instrument, so you can see where its notes are and learn them by position.
Watch: Find any scale on the fretboard
Scale shapes: CAGED, 3 and 4 notes per string
The scale shapes: the five CAGED shapes, three and four notes per string, and switching between the shape alone and the whole neck.
Shapes break the neck into positions you can learn one at a time and join up, which is how most players learn to play a scale anywhere.
Watch: Scale shapes: CAGED, 3 and 4 notes per string
Modes, and exotic scales
The seven modes of the major scale on one root, then exotic scales such as Hijaz, Hungarian Gypsy, Japanese and Hirajoshi.
Hearing and seeing the modes side by side shows what makes each one sound the way it does, and the exotic scales open up sounds beyond major and minor.
Watch: Modes, and exotic scales
Hear a scale
Playing a scale note by note, up and down, slowing it down and looping it.
Hearing a scale while you see it helps you learn its sound and check your own playing against it.
Scales in alternate tunings
The same scale in Drop D, Open D and Open G, and Shift used as a capo.
When you play in another tuning, the shapes you know move. Seeing them in your tuning saves working them out by hand.
Watch: Scales in alternate tunings
Build your own scale pattern
Building your own scale pattern in power user mode: notes or frets per string, where it starts, and saving it as a preset.
For when the standard shapes aren't the fingering you want: make your own and keep it.
Chords: Lookup
Chords → Lookup is a chord dictionary for your instrument and tuning. Pick a root and a chord type to see every way to play it, the most useful first: root position, near the nut, and the shapes players pick most. Hover the chord's name for its filters: which note is in the bass (its inversions), how many strings a shape uses, and open, closed or muted shapes. Click a shape to hear it.
Each chord also lists the scales that fit it. Add more chords to compare them side by side, or make your own chord types from their intervals.
Look up any chord
Looking up a chord in Chords → Lookup: choosing a root and a chord type, its shapes, showing more of them, and adding another chord.
Lookup is a chord dictionary for your instrument and tuning, with every way to play a chord, not just the first one in a book.
Reading a chord shape
Reading a chord diagram: fingered notes, open and muted strings, the root, and where on the neck the shape sits. Clicking a shape plays it.
Knowing how to read a diagram, and hearing it, makes every chord on the site usable at a glance.
Inversions, string counts and voicings
The filters behind a chord's name: which note is in the bass (the inversions), and how many strings a shape uses.
Filtering finds the voicing you need: a first inversion to walk a bass line, or a three-string shape to play up the neck.
Watch: Inversions, string counts and voicings
Why some shapes come first
Why some shapes come first: root position, nearest the nut, and the shapes players pick most.
The ranking puts the most useful shapes first, so the first few are usually the ones you want.
Which scales fit a chord
Which scales fit a chord, and choosing one for it.
To solo or write a melody over a chord, you need the scales that contain it. This shows them for you.
Make a custom chord type
Making your own chord type from its intervals, naming it, and finding it in Lookup.
For chords the dictionary doesn't name: build them once and use them everywhere on the site.
Chords: Build from scale
Chords → Build from scale shows the chord on every degree of a key and scale, labelled with its numeral (I, ii, iii...), each with its shapes. The depth sets how full the chords are: triads, then sevenths, ninths and elevenths.
Each chord comes with the scale that suits it, its mode in the key: in G major, Em gets E minor and D gets D Mixolydian. It's the place to see which chords belong together, for writing a progression or understanding a song.
Every chord in a key
Chords → Build from scale: the chord on every degree of a key, each with its shapes, and leaving degrees out.
Build from scale shows the chords that belong together in a key, the starting point for writing a progression or learning a song.
From triads to sevenths and ninths
Moving from triads to seventh and ninth chords with the depth control, and how the shapes change.
Sevenths and ninths add colour to a progression. This shows them for every degree, in shapes you can play.
Watch: From triads to sevenths and ninths
Chords of the modes
G major, A Dorian and E minor: the same notes with a different home, and how the chord numerals move.
Modes share their chords. Seeing that makes it easier to write in a mode and to understand songs that use one.
Slide chord shapes up the neck
Sliding a chord's shapes up the neck: a chord card's Fret center (in the filters behind its name) puts the shapes nearest that fret first, and Nut puts them back.
A fret center finds the shapes for where your hand already is, and adding chords in bulk (Quick Import, Automatically Add Chords, importing a chord sheet) takes one too.
Learn: Build Exercise
Learn → Build Exercise turns a scale into something to practise. Pick a preset pattern (runs, sequences, arpeggios, intervals), run it up, down or both ways, and play along as the tab and the fretboard follow. Set the time signature, note length, tempo and loop, with Accent and Ring for playback.
Strings mode plays patterns across the strings instead: string skipping, banjo rolls, crosspicking and fingerpicking. Create Exercise on any chord shape lines the scale up on the chord and starts the exercise with the chord itself.
Power users can build their own patterns, with groups, jumps, held notes and added intervals, choose whether a pattern over a chord walks the notes-per-string pattern or the chord's CAGED shape, and save patterns to use anywhere.
Your first exercise
Learn → Build Exercise: picking an exercise, running it up, down or both ways, and playing it along with the tab.
Exercises turn a scale into something to practise: patterns that build speed, accuracy and knowledge of the neck.
Runs and sequences
Runs and sequences (1-2-3-1, 1-2-3-5, Hanon), starting on another note, and finishing the last group past the shape.
Sequences are classic technique builders: they make you play a scale in a new order, which trains your hands and your ear.
Arpeggios and intervals
Arpeggios in one and two octaves, triads through the scale, and intervals from thirds to sixths.
Arpeggios and intervals show the chords and harmony inside a scale, and they're the basis of melodic soloing.
Watch: Arpeggios and intervals
Time signatures, note lengths and tempo
Time signatures, note lengths including triplets, tempo and loop, and the Accent and Ring playback options.
Practising in time is what turns a pattern into music. These controls set the rhythm and the speed.
Watch: Time signatures, note lengths and tempo
Exercises over a chord
Create Exercise on a chord shape: the scale lines up on the chord, then any pattern plays over it.
Chord exercises connect scales to the chords you're playing, which is how you learn to solo over changes.
String skipping
Strings mode: skipping one or two strings, and skipping and stepping back, over the scale.
String skipping builds picking accuracy and gives you wider, less predictable melodic lines.
Banjo rolls
On banjo: the forward, backward, forward-reverse and alternating thumb rolls, played over a chord.
Rolls are the heart of bluegrass banjo. Practising them over chords gets them into your hands for real songs.
Crosspicking (guitar and mandolin)
Crosspicking on mandolin: forward and reverse rolls, George Shuffler's 3-3-2 and Jesse McReynolds' 3-1-2. The same patterns work on guitar.
Crosspicking makes a flatpick sound like a banjo roll, a staple of bluegrass guitar and mandolin.
Watch: Crosspicking (guitar and mandolin)
Fingerpicking patterns
Fingerpicking patterns (p-i-m-a and p-i-m-a-m-i) over a chord.
These are the patterns behind most fingerstyle accompaniment. Practise them over the chords you know.
Build and save your own pattern
Building your own pattern: groups and jumps, held notes and added intervals, the string grid, and saving it.
When the presets don't have what you want, build it, and save it to use on any scale, chord or dashboard.
Learn: Lessons
Learn → Lessons has a ready-made page for every key and scale on each instrument. Pick your instrument, then the tuning, the key, the type of lesson and the scale, or search for one.
- Overview lessons have the key's scale shapes, its chords at each depth (basic, sevenths, ninths and triads), and progressions to play through.
- Progression lessons play a common progression in every key.
- Shape lessons cover the CAGED, 3 and 4 notes-per-string shapes of a scale.
Every lesson has its own address to bookmark or share, and signed in you can copy one into your own dashboards to make it yours.
Find a lesson for your key
Learn → Lessons: picking your instrument, then a tuning, key and scale, or searching for one.
The lessons give every key and mode a ready-made page of scale shapes, chords and progressions.
Watch: Find a lesson for your key
Practice with a lesson
Using a lesson: its scale shapes, its chords and more shapes of each, sevenths and ninths, and playing its progressions.
A lesson has everything for practising one key in one place, from first shapes to playing through the chords.
Make a lesson your own
Copying a lesson into your own dashboards, then adding your own exercises and progressions.
Start from a lesson and shape it into your own practice plan.
Chords and a metronome to play along with
Chords + metronome on a lesson's progression: each chord strummed where it starts, with a click on every beat, at the tempo you set; then back to the pattern.
Playing along with the chords and a click is the way to get the changes in time before you play the exercise over them.
Watch: Chords and a metronome to play along with
Download a progression as MIDI
MIDI ↓ on a progression (or an exercise): it saves what plays as a MIDI file, at the tempo you set and with your choices, such as Chords + metronome.
A MIDI file takes a progression into your DAW or notation app, to slow it down, change its sound or write over it. Bandmate plans and up.
Watch: Download a progression as MIDI
Share a lesson
Share on a lesson or any shared dashboard: copy its link, or send it by email or to Facebook, X, Reddit or WhatsApp.
Anyone can open a shared link without signing in, so it's the easy way to send a lesson to a student, a bandmate or a friend.
Learn: User dashboards
Learn → User dashboards are your own pages for a song, a key or a practice routine. A dashboard has sections, each with its own instrument and tuning, and each section holds scales, chords, exercises, progressions and lyrics.
- Chords come from the dictionary, from a scale's chords, or typed by name (Quick Import), with the number of strings each shape uses if you like (3 for triads). They stand in columns by root, with more shapes of each a click away.
- A scale can add its chords to the section automatically, at any depth.
- Progressions play an exercise over each chord of a chart in time. Start one from a preset by genre, in any key, and hover a chord to use another of its shapes.
- Lyrics hold chords over their words, and can become a progression.
- Import turns a pasted chord sheet (or a link) into a dashboard, and Quick Create builds a whole dashboard from one form.
Keep dashboards in folders, share one with a read-only link, publish it to the community (dashboards with lyrics can't be published), or copy someone else's. The Official dashboards are open to everyone.
What a dashboard is
What a dashboard is: a lesson or a song on one page, with its scales, chords, exercises, progressions and lyrics together.
Dashboards gather everything for a song, a key or a practice session in one place you can come back to.
Build your first dashboard
Building your first dashboard: creating it, naming it, adding a section, adding scales and chords, and saving.
Your own dashboards hold exactly what you're working on, ready whenever you pick up your instrument.
Quick Create a dashboard
Quick Create: a dashboard from one form. A section's tuning, key and scale, its scale shapes, the scale's chords, a progression typed as chord names (a chord the site doesn't know has to be fixed first), its time signature and pattern, and lyrics, then Create.
Quick Create builds, saves and opens a whole dashboard in one go, so you can start practising a song or a key in a minute.
Watch: Quick Create a dashboard
Arranging chords
Arranging chords in a dashboard: stacks of shapes, primary shapes, moving and dragging them, and hiding shapes from shared views.
Arranging chords shows the shapes you'll actually use, in the order you'll use them.
Exercises in a dashboard
Adding exercises to a dashboard from its scales and chords, editing them, and playing them.
Exercises in a dashboard keep your practice next to the song or key it's for.
Chord progressions
Progressions: a chord chart of bars and chords, which way each chord's exercise runs, the pattern and note length, and the tab it builds and plays.
A progression plays an exercise over each chord in turn, so you can practise moving through changes in time.
Lyrics with chords
Typing lyrics, placing chords on their words, and making a progression from the lyrics.
Lyrics with chords turn a dashboard into a song sheet you can play from, with practice built in.
Import a chord sheet
Importing a chord sheet: pasting it or giving a link, choosing the instrument and tuning, and what the import builds.
Import turns a song you already have into a dashboard in seconds, with the chord shapes worked out for your instrument.
Folders, copies and managing your data
Folders, moving dashboards, duplicating them, and Settings → Manage User Data.
Organising keeps a growing collection of songs and lessons easy to find.
Share a dashboard
Sharing a dashboard with a read-only link, publishing it to the community, and hiding chords from shared views.
Sharing lets students, bandmates or anyone follow what you've built, without being able to change it.
Find and copy community dashboards
Browsing the community dashboards, opening one, and copying it into your own.
Other players' dashboards are a head start: copy one and make it yours.
Settings: Preferences
Settings → Preferences sets up the site the way you like it:
- Themes: around 150 light and dark colour themes.
- The size of the page and of chord diagrams, and full screen.
- Tooltips, for the short explanations on the controls.
- Color Scale Degrees, to colour each note of a scale by its degree.
- Play Chords on Click, to hear a chord when you click its name.
- Save Parameters, to keep your selections for next time.
- Power User mode, for building your own scale shapes and exercise patterns, and seeing every chord shape.
Signed in, your preferences are saved with your account.
Themes and display
Settings → Preferences: the theme picker with its light and dark themes, full screen, and the size of the page and of chord diagrams.
Make the site comfortable to read on your screen, at the music stand or across the room.
Power user mode
Power user mode and what it unlocks: custom scale patterns, the depth dial, the pattern builder's grid, and unused chord shapes.
For players who want full control over every pattern and shape.
Settings: Manage User Data
Settings → Manage User Data keeps what you've saved in order. Presets lists your scale presets, custom chords, exercise patterns and progression presets, to rename, duplicate or delete. Dashboards lists your dashboards and folders, to move, rename, duplicate, share or delete.
Sign in with Google from the account button at the right of the tab bar, which also signs you out. What you can save (how many dashboards, saved presets, publishing, and chord-sheet imports a day) depends on your plan.
Saved presets
Settings → Manage User Data: your saved scale presets, custom chords and exercise patterns, renamed, duplicated or deleted.
Keep what you've saved tidy, so the presets you use are the ones you see.
Signing in, and what an account adds
Signing in with Google, the account menu, and what an account adds: saved dashboards, presets and patterns, and chord-sheet imports.
The music features all work without an account. Signing in lets you keep what you build and come back to it on any device.
Other Features
Some features work across every page:
- Instruments and tunings: pick guitar, bass, ukulele, mandolin or banjo, and any of their tunings, from Drop D to Open G. Shift moves everything up or down, like a capo or tuning down.
- Install the site as an app from your browser (Add to Home Screen on a phone) to open it full screen, a tap away.
- Every page, lesson and shared dashboard has its own address, so Back, Forward, bookmarks and links all work.
Pick your instrument and tuning
Switching between guitar, bass, ukulele, mandolin and banjo, picking alternate tunings like Drop D and Open G, and using Shift as a capo or to tune down.
Everything on the site follows the instrument and tuning you pick: scale shapes, chord shapes and exercises are worked out for exactly what you play.
Watch: Pick your instrument and tuning
Install it as an app
Installing the site as an app: from the browser on a computer, and with Add to Home Screen on iPhone and Android.
Installed, it opens like any other app, full screen and a tap away, which suits practising with your instrument in hand.
The Guitar Scales for bass
The site for bass: 4- and 5-string tunings, scale shapes, and exercises such as root-5th-octave and intervals.
Bass players get scales, arpeggios and exercises worked out for bass, for grooves and walking lines.
The Guitar Scales for ukulele
The site for ukulele: its re-entrant high G, three-notes-per-string shapes, and chord shapes.
Ukulele players get shapes and exercises that account for the high G string.
The Guitar Scales for mandolin
The site for mandolin: four-notes-per-string shapes, chord shapes, and crosspicking.
Mandolin players get shapes that suit fifths tuning, and the crosspicking patterns of bluegrass.
The Guitar Scales for banjo
The site for banjo: the short fifth string, chord shapes, and rolls over chords.
Banjo players get chord shapes and rolls that use the drone string the way banjo is really played.
The Guitar Scales for 7-string guitar
The site for 7-string guitar: the low B string and extended CAGED shapes.
7-string players get shapes and chords across all seven strings.
Open tunings (Open D, Open G)
Open D and Open G: their lessons, scale shapes and chord shapes.
Open tunings suit slide, folk and blues. The site works out the shapes so you don't have to.
Give feedback as a beta tester
For beta testers: Settings → Testing → Give Feedback on any page (it notes the page and what you picked), My Feedback with the replies, acknowledging a reply, and replying.
Feedback goes straight to the people building the site, with what you were looking at, so it can be fixed or built quickly.