Five notes taken from the major scale: the tonic, second, third, fifth and sixth. It contains no semitones, so no note of the scale lies a half step from another.
1 = C
2 = D
3 = E
5 = G
6 = A
Root
C
Scale
Major pentatonic
Type
pentatonic
Notes
C D E G A
Notes in the scale
5
Degree formula
1 2 3 5 6
Semitones from the root
0 2 4 7 9
Step pattern
W W W+H W W+H
Key signature of this root
C major / A minor · no sharps or flats
Written use
Named 1 2 3 5 6. Commonly played as a two-notes-per-string shape or as the five CAGED positions with the fourth and seventh degrees removed.
Notes and degrees
Each degree of the scale, its note name in this key, and its distance from the root in semitones.
Degree
Note
Semitones
Interval from the root
1
C
0
Perfect unison
tonic
2
D
2
Major second
3
E
4
Major third
5
G
7
Perfect fifth
6
A
9
Major sixth
Positions on the guitar
The five windows below are computed, not copied from a shape chart. The script locates the lowest
occurrence of C on each of the five upper strings within the first twelve frets and takes a
five-fret window centred on it. Because a scale repeats every twelve frets, these five windows cover
the whole neck; the same sequence returns an octave higher. The positions are numbered from the lowest
fret upwards, so position 1 is always the window nearest the nut and position 5 the window nearest the
twelfth fret.
Position 1 — frets 0–3
Root on the 2nd string B3 at fret 1. 12 notes of the scale inside this window.
Read the grid as a chord diagram: the top row is the first string. Degrees appear in the
notes and degrees table above; a filled cell is a note of the scale, and the shaded cell is the tonic.