Below are the 5 most common major keys that guitar is played in. That does not mean that you should neglect the other keys, just make sure you know these first. As well as playing these as written, also try holding each root note ( letter name C G D A E ) of the scale for twice as long. This will help establish the root in your ear, and how all of the other note relate to the root.

A key signature is used when certain notes are consistently sharp of flat in a piece of music. For example rather than placing a accidental in front of every occurrence of F# in the following scale the following is key signature that is placed just after the treble clef. This indicates that every F will be sharp ( in all octaves )

the F line goes right through the center of the sharp sign.

In this scale sharp the following ( F )

In this scale sharp the following ( F, C )

In this scale sharp the following ( F, C, G )

In this scale sharp the following ( F, C, G, D )

Page 1, sharps

Flats