The major scale: the absolute of songwriting techniques

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Every beginner songwriter thinks at first that it requires a lot of skills and songwriting techniques especially when writing the melody, this is because of the beast that we hear about always which is "music theory".

Music theory is not a very complicated theory as opposed to physics theories!!!, it's very simple to learn especially if you have the right tools and techniques. I believe that you've heard this somewhere "everything goes back to the major scale". The fun thing about this quote is that it's absolutely true, so the only theory you'll be learning is "the major scale".

The major scale is considered the standard of the music, everything is compared to it and everything goes back to it, how cool is that!

A scale is a series of notes played successively as it's name refers to. Every scale has 7 notes in it, but you can also find scales with less or more notes. The major scale is a scale that has 7 different notes in it and has these intervals: (WH, WH, H, WH, WH, Wh, H).

WH: whole step or whole tone, in guitar it's 2 frets.
H: half step of semi tone, in guitar it's 1 fret.

The first note of the scale is called the Root note of that scale, so in the key of C, the corresponding major scale will be: C - D - E - F - G - A - B - and C again. The first C is the same as the last C but one octave higher.

On the guitar's fretboard, you can play it like this

E--------------------------------------------------------------
B--------------------------------------------------------------
G--------------------------------------2---4---5------------
D-----------------------2---3---5---------------------------
A-------------3---5------------------------------------------
E-------------------------------------------------------------

Let's have another example, in the key of A the major scale will be: A (a whole step up) - B (a whole step up) - C# (a half step up) - D (a whole step up) - E (a whole step up) - F# (a whole step up) - G# (a half step up) - A again

E--------------------------------------------------------------
B--------------------------------------------------------------
G--------------------------------------------------------------
D---------------------------------4---6---7------------------
A----------------------4---5---7-----------------------------
E----------------5---7----------------------------------------

This is your major scale, just choose your root note and follow the whole and half step formula and you're done.