Guitar Scales Pentatonic Minor - Part 1 of 6
Are you feeling a little stuck and having difficulty organizing your practice?
Well, I’ve decided to do a six part series on scales to get the old fingers going, READ ON
This is the first of a six part series on guitar scales. I’ve done them for both TAB and guitar music notation.
The Pentatonic scale is the most basic scale used for improvisation. It is very useful and at the same time. probably the most boring scale possible. Useful because it’s easy to master
and apply, and boring because it is so easy and useful, it is possible to get stuck on it and not venture too far away from it.
I have named this scale the Pentatonic Minor because it is a five note scale, Penta meaning five and Minor because the relationship between the 1st and second note of the scale is a tone and a half (3 frets) apart, this is a minor 3rd interval. But lets keep it simple for now.
The guitar lends itself to this type of scale, it’s easy to play, and play it can be played fast without too much sweat because there are only two notes played on each string, this enables the player to pick up and down and then move to the next string.
If you’re just starting out just play the first 3 bars, get it going nice and steady, play in time, relaxed and with feeling.
BUT if you can already play, you’re not getting off that easy. I’ve created an exercise that moves up the fretboard. It starts at fret one, then moves to fret four, then seven, then ten. I prefer to work this way than just move robotically up the fretboard fret by fret. It will force you to think a little more.
The chords behind each one of these sclaes would be:
F minor for 3 bars, Ab minor for 3 bars, B minorfor 3 bars, D minor for 3 bars
Practice these scales smoothly. This is not a race! Oh yeah, turn the tele off.
To download the 1st of the printable Guitar Scales for Rock Guitar Pentatonic Minor click the link below
