The major scale is more that 7 notes?

Tony B

The major scale consists of 7 DIFFERENT notes but usually includes the octave. In C that would be CDEFGABC. Playing the scale without the second C doesn't resolve - it sounds unfinished. It's like do ra me fa so la te do, it's just "wrong" without that final "do". In a given position on guitar, it's good to practice playing all the notes in a given key that can physically be played (that you can reach from that position). If you played a C scale at the nut end of the guitar (that includes open strings) it would start on the C on the 5th string and finish on the C on the second string. It's a good idea to extend this upwards by playing the D on the second string, the open E and the G on the first string. It can also be extended downwards ending on the open low E. If you were playing a simple tune in C, it might use any of those notes so it's a good idea to know where they are. You will sometimes see diagrams showing all the notes in a given scale wherever they are on the fretboard - EVERY CDEFGA and B. This isn't a good place to start learning about scales though.

Kevin

Long answer, might not be the clearest but I hope it makes sense! Every (or just about every) scale you encounter is reduced to the span of a single octave. The Major scale pattern is W-W-W-H-W-W-W-H. In C major, that is, C,D,E,F,G,A,B,(C) Put that aside for a second, separate idea. Pitch and Pitch-Class: Pitch refers to one particular pitch; It has a letter and a number; C4 refers to NOT JUST ANY C, but specifically C4 (middle C on the piano). C5 does not mean any C, it means the C one octave above C4. Pitch-Class refers to EVERY C. (When you go up an octave to the next C, the # goes up by one, and the reverse is true, descending the number gets smaller). Pitch-class doesn't need a number, because it refers to every C. Pitch: C4 Pitch-Class C = . . .C-1, C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, C9. . . . so on and so forth. EVERY C. Okay. Back to major scale. So if I spelt the major scale for you: C-D-E-F-G-A-B, that is enough information. It refers to every PITCH-CLASS used in the C major scale. Written out it would be using every pitch C0,D0,E0,F0,G0,A0,B0 C1,D1,E1,F1,G1,A1,B1 C2,D2,E2,F2,G2,A2,B2, C3,D3,E3,F3,G3,A3,B3, C4,D4,E4,F4,G4,A4,B4, C5 . . . . Can you continue it? Hope the pattern is clear. For the sake of simplicity, we don't need to notate every pitch that is possible in the c major scale, we only need to notate the pitch class. The scale can continue on indefinitely in either direction (backwards/descending, and forward/ascending). (G-A-B-)C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C(-D-E-F-G-A-B-C . . .)

Ben

You've gotten some good answers but I'd like to point out that you would really benefit from lessons with a professional guitar teacher.

Me2

As we need to know the notes of the scale in every position of the fretboard (or within the range of a wind instrument, or across the keyboard, etc.), we practice extended scales with arbitrary starting points.  This is particularly important with string instruments because the same pitch can be played in multiple positions (except the highest and lowest notes).