Pentatonic Scales
One of the most commonly played scales on the guitar is the pentatonic scale. It is often the only scale some players will bother to learn. Versatile enough to be played in rock, blues, jazz, and country as well as many other styles of music, the pentatonic is a great place to start when learning lead guitar.
While major and minor diatonic scales consist of seven notes, the pentatonic has only five. ( Penta = 5 ) The scale uses intervals of a major second and a minor third. For a minor pentatonic scale the structure would be from the root, a minor third, major second, major second, minor third, and major second. For the key of A minor the notes would be A C D E G another way of thinking of this is the minor pentatonic uses the one, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh of the natural minor scale. We omit the second and sixth to create the minor pentatonic sound.
The major pentatonic scale would be from the root, a major second, a major second, a minor third, a major second, and a minor third, so in the key of C major the notes would be C D E G A, notice they are the same as the A minor, but in a different order. This is because C major and A minor are relative keys.
This lesson is a fairly simple one, memorize the five pentatonic positions. Once you do that, then you need to be able to transpose to other keys, play licks over different keys, and use all five patterns to improvise over different chord progressions in different styles. All of which will be covered in future lessons.
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The diagrams are similar to chord charts, except turned on an angle, and you don't play all the notes at once, you play from the bottom of the diagram, left to right one note a time. So in pattern one, you would start with the fifth fret sixth string, then play the eighth fret sixth string, then change to the fifth fret filth string, then the seventh fret fifth string, to the fifth fret fourth string, to the seventh fret fourth string, to the fifth fret third string, to seventh fret third sting, changing to the fifth fret second string, to the eight fret second string, to the fifth fret first string, and finally to the eighth fret first string. You should always play scales in both directions, use a metronome, count the rhythm, play clean, and down and up pick.
Once you memorize pattern one, time to go on two pattern two. When you have pattern two memorized then keep working to memorize the rest of the patterns. Pay close attention to the proper fret for each pattern, notice how the scales overlap. Once you have all five patterns down then you want to start with pattern five, and play all patterns in order one at a time, going in both directions all the way up to the seventeenth fret, where you would play pattern one again. This way you work the entire fret board, and use all five patterns, (some of them twice) once you can do this in A minor, which is the key that the scales are shown on the page, then you need to learn how to transpose, and improvise with them.
Keep up the good work, you are on your way to becoming a well rounded lead guitar player.