So how does the guitar fit in to all this? You may recall that each fret of the guitar is a half-step away from the next. So the guitar fretboard naturally forms a chromatic scale. Very useful.

If you play E, String 6, open, and then you play the note on every fret on the E string up to the twelfth fret, you will have played a chromatic scale starting on E. Try it.

If you play A, String 5, open, and then you play the note on every fret up to the twelfth fret, you will have played a chromatic scale starting on A.

The chromatic scale is a really important concept to understand because now you can do lots of things on the guitar fretboard, not just confine yourselves to open-string chords or scales. The most important thing you can do is move the same scale shapes (also known as patterns) and chord forms up and down the neck.

FIGURE 8-2 shows all the notes on all the strings.