There are no technical differences between the notes in a guitar scale and the notes in a violin scale. Their method of arrangement, however, can vary. For electric guitar players, the five-note pentatonic scale is often used in solo passages and improvisation. The pentatonic scale does not require the guitar player to make any large shifts of the hand, allowing for rapid execution. Violin players typically practice standard eight-note scales in addition to triadic and chordal arpeggios designed to refine the violinist's ability to shift. Acoustic guitar performers will typically study standard scale passages rather than solely pentatonic material.
The range of both the acoustic and electric guitar is much more limited than that of the violin. Because of this, guitar scales typically do not include as many series of repeated notes, or octaves, within one scale.
The strings of the violin and guitar are tuned differently from one another. Whereas the violin tunes in fifths, meaning that each string is exactly 7 half-steps apart, the guitar tunes in fourths, with the exception of the B and G strings whose relationship is that of a third. Because of this, guitar players must switch strings more often to produce the notes that a violin would be capable of performing on fewer strings.
The fingerboard of the violin has several physical differences from the guitar's fret board. Metallic bands, or frets, regularly divide the fre tboard of the guitar into series of half-steps. This allows guitar players to quickly locate their desired pitch on the neck of the instrument. Violin players do not have this luxury, and must memorize the physical distance between each half-step on the instrument. On both instruments, however, the size of the half-step grows increasingly smaller as players move their hands into higher positions on the instrument.