Major Scale

How do you learn the major scale inside and out? There are so many, and have many different positions as well. I was looking at the scales here, to learn all the major scales, but I think its gonna take me forever to get this all down. One of my friends told me its easyer then I think, he says that I just need to know the notes on my fretboard and the WWHWWWH pattern. I know the pattern but I haven't got all the notes down and I don't know how to play the scales differently. I only know how to play it like this.

----------------------------
----------------------------
------------------2--4--5-
-------2--3--5------------
3--5-----------------------

That is the only way I know how to play the major scale for every key, and I know I can move it around as long as I know my notes.I am just a really confused about this and I am spending a lot of time trying to figure this out.

Have a look on the guitar scales section of the site. You can get scales across the whole fretboard for every key with that, and learn different patterns as you please.

Your friend was rigt it will be a big step forward when you learn the fret board. Also I don't know if it was just typing mess up or not but just in case it wasn't the steps for the major scale are WWHWWH not WWHWWWH ;-)

And by the way welcome to the site.

LP: Nah, he got the formula right. It's W W H W W W H.

Sorry you were both right.

@FlyingTurtle: I am still learning about theory and the scales myself. I try not to comment on things unless I know what I am talking about. I thought I was correcting something that was going to throw you off. Honest mistake my bad.

Well, I always say that one of the best ways to confirm your knowledge is to try and teach others, so no worries there, it's an easy mistake.

I learned the pentatonic minor first, and from there, the minor scale which is really close. From there the major scale is all the same notes, just start on the third. These are called relative scales. Its how I learn all my scales and modes: by relating them to the major or minor scale.