Hey…This is Bruce. I’m a 55 year old novice who’s learning to play accoustic guitar. I’m new to everything here…so bear with me 
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I’m trying to learn scales. I’m reading all sorts of diagrams but find it challenging. My brain needs a starting point, an indicated flow of direction (up, down, left or right etc) and an ending point. All I see are a LOT of dots .
Can anyone please explain how scales work or point me to diagrams that do?
Cheers
Hi Bruce and welcome to the Justin Guitar experience. It’s a great place to learn from ground zero to become a guitar player! Here’s a webite with good material on scales and other things guitar. I don’t think there’s a simple explanation of scales, just a lot to absorb over time. Follow Justin’s course plan, it’ like the Yellow Brick Road, but no wicked witches and flying monkeys.
Hi Bruce, and welcome. Firstly, slow down and think for a moment. Go to the beginning with Justin, start grade 1, and work through it all, will be explained, cheers HEC and don’t forget FUN
Hi Bruce,
As has already been mentioned here, make sure that you follow the modules and at a slow steady pace.
Scales have for some reason taken me a long time to grasp, not the playing of them but understanding the nuts and bolts of why I need them, that to me wasn’t obvious and left me with a bit of a disconnect as to what I was supposed to do with them, thankfully that penny is dropping now but not before time.
Biggest thing, be patient and enjoy the journey, play some songs and don’t just get bogged down in the theory.
I guess it depends on what you are looking at as far as a Scale diagram. A lot of stuff you will find on the internet will have all of the notes in a scale across the fretboard. Most often when you are learning guitar, playing a scale will be in one position (not moving your hand up and down the neck). So you don’t start out learning the ‘scales’ the you randomly found on the internet all across the whole fretboard. You break it into chunks by hand position.
A scale is a set of notes in a key. Somewhere (and maybe more than once) Justin describes a scale as the letters in an alphabet. That said there are a number of different languages you can use and the scale would not be the same in each. A basic (major) scale is 8 notes that get from one root note, to the next root note. When you see on the internet all the notes across the full fret board, those are spanning many octave, repeating the same notes over again at a higher or lower frequency. A scale in 1 position, might span 2/3 octaves, repeating the same notes.
All that said, if you follow Justin’s course we will explain in increasing complexity what scales are and how to use them.
Good Luck!
guitars can make concepts like scales more complicated because there’s more than one way to play the exact same scale on a guitar.
my musical background is from instruments (trumpet, piano) where that is not the case, so scales are much easier to learn. On piano, especially, you can see the entire keyboard at once and map out each scale before ever playing it. if you’re entirely new to music theory, too (sounds like that’s what you’re saying), then maybe starting with scales conceptually that way first and then coming over to the guitar might help.
Also, from a conceptual standpoint, it might be easier to start with scales on the guitar a single string at a time. The fretboard charts with all the dots in each “position” definitely have a lot more going on and might take you a little longer to wrap your brain around. It certainly has been for me. It’s taking awhile to really commit those to memory.
This is actually not true and only piano players see it this way.
There is only 1 way to play scales on guitar and once you learn it you can figure out every scale in every key by using your ears.
@Bruiser1 Welcome to the forum Bruce.
If you are at the beginning of you guitar journey learning scales is a waste of your time. Scales are like the alphabet and chords are the words. Children learn to speak before they learn the alphabet. So go through Justin’s beginner courses and learn scales when he brings them up.
You should ask yourself why you want to learn scales. You might want to watch this video of Justin’s:
https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/when-not-to-learn-scales-sc-104
I think the following is one of Justin’s earliest lessons on learning a scale:
https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/open-e-minor-pentatonic-scale-b2-803
Hi Bruce, Grade 3 beginner here. Justin’s course introduces skills and concepts in a manner that builds on previous lessons. In my experience, following the lessons is the best way to progress. He does begin introducing scales (pentatonic first), but not until Grade 2.
Also, understanding (rather than just memorizing) scales on the guitar neck requires some understanding of music theory. I’m inferring from your post that you don’t have this background. If that’s correct, I’d recommend taking a look at Justin’s Music Theory course. I’ve done that, and it’s been (to me) indispensable for understanding both how music and the guitar work. Grades 1 and 2 are free, and major scale theory begins in Grade 3. There’s a 30-day money-back policy, so you’ve got nothing to lose!
Justin often uses the piano to describe scales and intervals in music theory because it’s visually easier
This one? 
Absolutely! 
Hi Bruce ,
Welcome here and I wish you a lot of fun 
I learned the 5 patterns of CAGED one after the other in a few weeks 5 years ago because a YouTube guy thought it was a good idea… Such a waste of my time…don’t do that. 
First learn one shape and then learn to make a lot of music with it for a very long time, other patterns/shapes of scales are the same notes and that is learned much later and comes when you ready for it …
The nice thing is if you just learn 1 pattern (let say E-shape) then you can play in any key as indicated earlier above , just by only knowing the 12 notes on the thick E string you also know in witch key you play 
, Justin will quickly come up with a first scale, so start at the beginning.
I heard him say today “learning slowly to play is learning to play much faster”
Long story short…start at the beginning … 
GO 
Greetings,Rogier
Totally agree.
@brianlarsen You will notice Justin only uses the white keys when teaching scales on piano (key of C Major). That’s because every scale on a piano has a different shape.
The guitar only has one shape that repeats for every scale All over the neck. Taking in account for the B string shift and knowing your intervals you will see adjusting the Major scale anywhere on the neck is the same pattern.
Knowing your intervals allows you to figure out every other scale.
Learn that one string scale then apply it using more than one string. You’ll have an light bulb moment and the fret board will no longer be a mystery.
Yellow boxes still needed, all these years down the line !
Home of The Yellow Box aka Intervals Made Easy
You may have to root around.
Toby sometimes I think you are the only one who understood what I was talking about on the old forum.
Good feeling knowing at least one person understand the Major scale and how it works on a guitar. 
Shadow got it but he already understood it.
ello @Bruiser1 and welcome to JustinGuitar
You say you’re a novice.
The answer you need is not the answer tlo your question.
As a raw beginner you do not need to learn about / know about scales.
Not for a while.
Chords and rhythm come first in the JustinGuitar beginner course.
Work from grade 1 module 1.
Please do not distract yourself with random online lessons pulling you in multiple directions.
We have had so many people in the community who did that and regret it.
Seriously.
Don’t even click the links people have provided.
Grade 1 module 1 is the place to begin and work from
Best of luck…
Yes @brianlarsen, but that light bulb moment can seem more akin to slogging for months through a dim series of interconnected major, minor, augmented and myxolydian tunnels with a feeble torch before finally the electricity switches on.
@stitch & @mfeeney0110
I don’t really view the fretboard as a mystery. Even though I’m still only a early/intermediate player, I’ve been around Justin’s lessons and forum long enough to know where most of the light switches are for the many things I cannot (yet) do.
I’m not really into playing lead/melody lines on guitar and focus more on strumming simple chords for the songs I play. Maybe one day practising scales for licks, riffs and improv will grab me and I’ll go down that path then
As Richard points out, the OP does not need to know this yet, my contribution above was intended to clarify a statement, but it doesn’t help the original query so might have been better left out
Hi Bruce, I wanted add that I strongly agree with @Richard_close2u . You need to learn a few things in grade 1 first if you are a complete novice. In Grade 1 module 5 Justin introduces the note circle that you need to know to begin understanding scale notes and then in module 6 you learn the notes of the open strings to begin your journey of learning the notes of the guitar. When you get to module 7 of grade 1 Justin introduces the benefits of learning music theory. By then you will have learned to play a few songs on the guitar and hopefully be having fun. You start learning actual scales in grade 2.
