A musical scale is basically a group of notes with well-defined intervals between them. A musical scale could consist of the notes A, B, C, D, E, F, and G (this is, in fact, a C major scale). Or a musical scale could consist of the notes A, A#, C, C#, D#, E, F#, G. A scale can be any group of notes. However, there are common scales that are used in Western music. These scales are the ones that are familiar to most musicians.
A major scale is defined to have intervals of a whole step, another whole step, a half step, and then three whole steps followed by a half step back to the root. Ok, so what does all that mean? A half step is just a single interval between notes (for example F to F# is a half step, so is B to C).
A whole step is two half steps, so it is two intervals between notes (from F to G, or from B to C#). On the guitar, then, a half step is equivalent to one fret, and a whole step is equivalent to two frets.
A root of a scale is the note that the scale starts on. So how is it possible to determine what note a scale starts on? Let’s say there is a scale where the intervals between notes were defined as whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half (this is a major scale). Given the notes: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G it can be determined that this is a D major scale by looking for the correct pattern:
There is a lot more that could be said about musical scales. (musical scales are quite mathematical — which the reader may or may not find interesting). But they are crucial part of the whole process and to properly learn guitar lessons, you have to, first master musical scales.
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