F major scale (F Ionian)
Both slide-free shapes for this key, charted at the frets they actually sit on, with the notes, the modes that share them, and the chords the key is built from.
The notes
FGAB♭CDE
The patterns
Pattern #3 frets 11 to 16
Pattern #3 is one of only two major-scale shapes with no dots on the Box’s outer frets, so all four fingers stay parked over their own frets from the first note to the last — no slides, pure Chromatic Box discipline. And the shape never changes from key to key; only the fret number under it does. Learn it once and every unlock after is the same fingers, one fret higher.
Pattern #10 frets 4 to 9
The other slide-free major-scale shape: like Pattern #3, no dots land on the Box’s outer frets, so every finger keeps its own fret the whole run. The dots sit differently, which puts each key in a second window — usually far from where Pattern #3 plays it. With both shapes down, any key is close at hand wherever you are on the neck.
The dots in these two charts are the same ones every key uses. What belongs to F is where the window sits: pattern #3 at frets 11 to 16, and pattern #10 at frets 4 to 9. The number printed beside each chart is the fret your index finger rests on, one above the window's first fret. Learn the shape once and each new key is the same fingers somewhere else on the neck. More on why these two come first is on the major scale page.
The same dots, six other names
Play these patterns but treat a different note as home and you are playing a mode. Nothing about the fingering changes, only which dot the music leans on:
- G Dorian
- A Phrygian
- B♭ Lydian
- C Mixolydian
- D Aeolian
- E Locrian
Chords in F major
Stack the notes of the key in thirds and you get its seven chords. These are the chords a song in this key is most likely to use, and the ones a solo over that song has to fit.
The linked ones have a chart and a fingering on this site. The rest are shapes the app does not teach yet.