Every guitarist should be familiar with guitar scales. Apart from that, practicing scales is a great exercise for improving your left hand skill when moving around the fretboard.

The C major scale – perhaps the most basic – is a great place to start. On the image below you can see a standard pattern for the C major scale.

The scale starts with a C sound and ends with a C sound as well.

C major scale v1

Here’s a tab for little additional help:

C major scale v1 tab

And a video:

Although this is the standard pattern it’s not my favorite. While practicing, I like to play the C major scale using this pattern instead:

C major scale v2

And the tab:

C major scale v2 tab

What’s cool about this pattern is the fact that you can hit C sounds three times, each one an octave higher, which makes it a really nice exercise.

If you want to learn more you can visit all-guitar-chords.com and get the full pattern for the C major scale (click here).

If you want to learn more check out how major guitar scales are made.

(Images by http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/)