Originally Posted by: martjor854

I was exploring the above lessons and decided to also look at the scale finder tool.[/quote]

Which lesson are you referring to?

Originally Posted by: martjor854you are teaching this scale on the basis of three notes per string.[/quote]

Usually, yes. But there are also a couple of 2 notes per string patterns included in those as well because that's the nature of the guitar layout.

Originally Posted by: martjor854

Is this Major scale you are continually using as an example Ionian?

Yes, the diatonic major scale is synonymous with the ionian mode. Those are 2 different terms for exactly the same thing.

[quote=martjor854]what is Ionian?

A fancy name for the major diatonic scale! :) [br][br]Ionian is a Greek word used by a Swiss music theorist that wanted to give a unique name to each mode of the diatonic major scale.

Modes are a fairly advanced, and sometimes confusing, topic. If you are a beginner working through the Fundamentals courses or just learning songs, then you don't need to worry about modes.

If you play on going deeper into music theory I have tutorials that explain all about modes, what they are for & how to use them.

Modes of the Major Scale

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=370

Practicing Major Modes

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=770

Practicing Minor Modes

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=2630

[quote=martjor854][br]what's the difference between the major scales and the pentatonic scales?

Great question!

The full name of the major scale is the diatonic major (or minor) scale. This helps distinguish it from the pentatonic major (or minor) scale.

Diatonic scales have 7 notes with a specific interval formula between the notes. I cover the C major scale for beginners in this tutorial.

C major scale for beginners

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=363

Pentatonic scales only have 5 notes with a specific interval formula between the notes. I cover the pentatonic scales in this tutorial.

Pentatonic Scales

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=296

They are almost the exact same thing, with one distinguishing characteristic: the pentatonic scales avoid 2 notes of the diatonic scales. This is easy to see with an example!

C major scale (a diatonic scale)

c (1) - d (2) - e (3) - f (4) - g (5) - a (6) - b (7)

C penatonic major scale

c (1) - d (2) - e (3) - g (5) - a (6)

You can see that these 2 scales have all the of the exact same notes & intervals, except that the 4th & 7th scale degress are included in diatonic, but "left out" or avoided in pentatonic.

Diatonic is usually just an assumed qualifier. You don't have to specify it because it's the default position. "Dia-" is a prefix meaning "through", as in all the way through the scale. "Penta-" is a prefix meaning "five", as in "5 notes" or "5 tones" in the scale.

Hope that helps!