Guitar tools
Guitar Scale Finder
Choose a key and scale to see the notes across guitar fretboard. Root notes are shown in black; low E (thickest, 6th string) is shown at the bottom, and high E (thinnest, 1st string) is shown at the top.
How to use the guitar scale finder
Pick a key, pick a scale, and the fretboard shows every note of that scale across the neck. Always start at the root (black notes) to hear how it sounds.
You can select frets to learn scales in specific positions. Open position is good, or try Position I through V.
You can use the diagram to warmup - play it in a couple positions before songs.
The three families of guitar scales
I've split the scales into three families. The major family (Major, Lydian, Mixolydian) sounds bright and resolved. The minor family (Natural Minor, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Dorian, Phrygian, Blues) is darker and common in rock, metal and soul. The pentatonic family (Minor Pentatonic, Major Pentatonic) is great for lead, and I find the major pentatonic a very beautiful scale.
Related chords
Every scale has chords built from it. Here are the diatonic (diatonic means in the key; vs chromatic = not in the key) chords for the most common scales:
Which guitar scale should you learn first?
Major pentatonic is a good start. Then the major scale. Every other scale here is the major scale with a few notes changed. So- major pentatonic, major, minor, minor pentatonic, then the modes- lydian, myxolydian and the rest.
Don't memorize boxes and stop there. A scale learned as a pattern is a pattern; try it over a backing track. Hum something, try to play it in that scale/position.