Ukulele Major Scale Patterns

So we had a lazy weekend last weekend. My husband wasn't feeling great, and we have all just been feeling kind of stretched thin and exhausted all the time. So on Sunday morning, my husband put on a relaxing movie (War Of the Worlds with Tom Cruise, ugh) and then about twenty minutes in, he got up and left the room to take a phone call and left me there with my steel string baritone guitarlele (fun little instrument) to practice scales over the sounds of explosions and screaming. 

**(If that's not an apt metaphor for what's happening in the world right now, I don't know what is.)**

Anyway. 

After mastering the first major scale in the set of exercises (they're actually for guitar, but you can obviously play them on the 6-string guitarlele, I just transpose them in my head so I know what scale/key I'm playing in), I went on to the next...and realized that the fingering pattern was exactly the same as the first - it just started on a different fret. 

I went on to the next one, and again - same fingering pattern, different starting fret. 

Suddenly somewhere around the time that Tom Cruise got sucked up into an alien ship, it dawned on me that I could figure out these scale patterns on my ukuleles. 

Scales are something that I've struggled with on the ukulele, and I have no idea why. Aside from learning the C major scale in first position (and I've flirted with the F major scale on the re-entrant uke and the G major scale on the low G uke), I've never really been able to figure out how to play a scale moving across three (or four) strings on the ukulele. I can pick out the notes of a scale easily enough on a single string, but moving across all four strings? That's been something I've never been able to figure out. 

Until now. 

Woo hoo! So here's my simple formula for playing scales, followed by why you should practice your ukulele scales every day:

Let's just talk about major scales today. Because that's all I've been playing with, and I haven't really tackled the minor scales or the pentatonic scales yet. (I'll get there. All in good time.)

We know that to construct a major scale, we use a series of whole and half steps between notes. I'll use the C major scale here, since the re-entrant uke is tuned to C, and it's the easiest one to learn. 

The notes of the C major scale contain no sharps and no flats. C is the tonic (first) note of the scale, so the notes of the C major scale are:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B

And of course, we all feel the need to end that scale on the octave C, eight notes above where we started. 

We know that between each note is either a whole step or a half step. The pattern for the major scales are: 

Whole - Whole - Half - Whole - Whole - Whole - Half

Which translates to: a whole step between C and D; a whole step between D and E; a half step between E and F; a whole step between F and G; a whole step between G and A; a whole step between A and B; and a half step between B and C, an octave above the first C in the scale. 

So how do you figure this out on the ukulele?

Well, we take a look at the fret board. Each fret is a half step between notes (or tones, if you're in Europe). So if we start on the open C string, to play the C major scale across all four strings, this is what it would look like (in tablature form):

Now you'll notice that we start with the open C string, so if we want to move up a whole step and play the D major scale, we'll use a similar pattern to this. But we need to start on the D note, which is the second note of the C major scale (2nd fret of the C string). 

So let's look at the D major scale now, starting on the second fret of the third (C) string:

If we use four fingers to play the scale, we'll start with fingers 1 and 3 on the C string, followed by fingers 1, 2, and 4 on the E string, and then fingers 1, 3, and 4 on the A string. (Not to be confused by the fret numbers, that are noted in the tablature above.)

So on the C string, you'd play the frets under your index and ring fingers;

On the E string, you'd use your index, middle, and pinky; 

On the A string, you'd use your index, ring, and pinky. 

Do you see the scale pattern forming here?

Now you can play any major scale starting on any note on the C string of the ukulele! Want to play an E major? Slide that pattern up so you start on the fourth fret of the C string. Heck, you could even play a C# major scale just by sliding this down so that you start on the first fret of the C string. 

Of course, there are loads of other ways to play scales. But this is a good starting point for someone just getting started with ukulele major scale patterns, and you can use it to play any major scale across three strings of the ukulele! 

Now, why would you want to learn this?

First reason I can think of is ear training. Practicing this major scale pattern up and down the C string of your uke will help train your ear to learn what a major scale sounds like. It will help you learn how to identify intervals, whole steps, and half steps. Ear training like this comes in very handy when you're learning how to play by ear, or learning how to create solos on the ukulele for the next time you're at a uke jam. 

Second reason I can think of, these are great for practicing finger dexterity. Like a few of my teachers say, once muscle memory kicks in, you can do a lot with these kinds of things like add dynamics (softer, louder, etc.). 

Finally, these are great warm-ups to play on your ukulele before you sit down to play with others at a uke jam or just when you're getting ready to do a practice session at home. 

Learning musical scales is a great foundation for learning more about music theory!