This lesson goes over the very famous Pentatonic Minor Scale with all of its fingerings. Since 5 notes make up the pentatonic scale, there are 5 fingerings. I suppose we could view these fingerings as Pentatonic Modes, though you don't hear a lot of people talk about them. For this lesson, I have chosen G Minor as the starting point, but you should realize that you could translate these fingerings up and down the neck to achieve the other keys (i.e. shift all fingerings upward by a whole step then we have A Minor Pentatonic as our starting point.)

First, note that the G Major diatonic scale has the notes G Major scale are G, A, B, C, D, E, F#. The notes in the G Minor Pentatonic are G, A#, C, D, E. So, all the 5 notes of the G Minor Pentatonic scale are not in the G Major scale. You have a couple keys to choose from when it comes to playing G Minor Pentatonic scales, but G Major is not one of them. In the Diatonic Scales lesson, I talked about how each mode has a chord type that goes with it. The 2nd, 3rd, and 6th modes go with Minor chords. So, that means for G Minor Pentatonic, you can play that scale in any key whose 2nd, 3rd, or 6th note is G.

You can't talk about the Pentatonic scales without talking about the Blues scale. The Blues scale just adds a 6th note to a pentatonic scale. In the fretboard diagrams for the exercises, I have shown the extra blues note. The diagram is only a suggestion - depending on how your fingers are, you may find adding the blues notes to the scales like I have shown a little awkward.

Ok - enough talk. Just get on with the exercises and email me if you are confused about anything!

The first guitarist I ever saw play the blues scale using a 3-note-per-string pattern was Paul Gilbert. It is not something you forget as it really is an ingenious approach. So in this guitar lesson I will show you one of endless possibilities for turning this idea into a firey riff. In particular, we will use the A Blues Pentatonic Scale, which has the notes A, C, D, Eb, E, G. The great thing about playing the blues scale 3-notes-per-string is that we can use patterns and ideas that we are already accustomed to in the 3-note-per-string world.

Above is the tab showing how to play this scale using 3 notes per string. The first thing you will notice is that you need to stretch fairly wide to pull this off. Secondly, you have to do a good amount of position shifting, which can be a challenge, especially at higher tempos.

So now go and master this scale shape. After you are comfortable, start experimenting with your own riff ideas. In my recording, I ascended using a simple scalar pattern and then descended using a triplet pattern that is ingrained in my 3-note-per-string scale pattern vocab.

Enjoy!

Brian