Guitar Octaves

Guitar octaves are a very effective way to see how tones on the guitar are organized. They are consistent for every tone. Once you know the shapes for any given tone, not only are they the same for every other tone, but they always cycle in the same order (the same as the chord forms). Octaves are the bare bones of standard tuning. They are the skeleton chords, scales, & arpeggios fill in & wrap around.

An octave is an interval of an 8th, such as C to C, or A to A. It is a frequency doubling or halving of a tone (twice as fast or slow).

In Western music, scales are typically heptatonic (7 tones). Therefore, the completion of a scale, whether Major or minor or other, is the 8th, which is the same letter name, or tone, as the first. (Oct- means eight). Within an octave are 13 tones (13th completing), and 12 half steps.

In cultures using Pentatonic scales (5 tone scales) as their primary melodic & harmonic tone material, the 'octave' could be called a 6th, rather than an 8th. In 12 tone music (dodecaphonic), the 'octave' could be called a 13th.

What follows is all 7 of the octave shapes with 1 double octave (8 total, unless you can reach some more double octaves - go easy & never strain your hands).

Octaves

Often we fret these & try to mute the other strings, so we can move them around.

Some are more difficult to mute & move than others. Here is some TAB for showing which octave shapes we consider more & less useful (depending on how you use them):

Guitar Octave Shape Exercises for the Tones of F & E

Use the fingering below the TAB. FH = Fretting Hand.

Guitar octaves with scales filling them in