The Guitar Pentatonic minor scale

       The guitar pentatonic minor scale is a scale that consists of 5 notes per octaves. The pentatonic scale gets its name from the Greek word penta meaning five and the word tonic meaning tone.

        The guitar pentatonic minor scale is one of the most important scales in modern music. That is not to say the pentatonic scale is a modern scale. The minor pentatonic scale has been around for a while in addition to being a staple in rock, jazz and blues it can be heard in Celtic folk music, Hungarian folk music, and Greek traditional music. These scales have been used by artist such as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Joe Walsh and Slash to name just a few. I think you get the point these pentatonic scales minor and major are very important to music.

         The pentatonic scales can be played on the guitar neck in a number of different ways. It can be played on one string or three notes per string. This is true about most things on the guitar and one of the coolest things about guitar playing. What we will be looking at in the next few lessons is what I was taught and still use to this day and that is the box scale form. This is a great place to start and a very easy pattern to remember. In the examples below we have all five box scale patterns. The red note indicates the starting root note of the scale.

      The above example shows you the five box pentatonic scales. However I would not recommend trying to learn all five patterns at once take them one at a time. Practice them back words and forwards. Learn the notes of these scales this will all help you improvise a lead over a song. Play with other people and play these scales over different chord progressions. Also one big mistake everyone makes is after they learn these scales they fall in love with the order. Meaning that stick with the same pattern they learned. When you have learned these scales or at least the section you are working on. Change the order up a bit. Skip some notes. Don’t make it sound like you are just playing your scales. Make your leads interesting to the listener.

       Last but not least notice the order of the box scales in the above examples. The go in order up the neck. So when you are done with the first group of notes simply slides up a few frets to the next box scale. Take time and learn this pattern. This is great when improvising and you don’t want to stay in one location on the neck. I have mentioned that you will have to practice these scale. You will not be able to do this right out of the box however put the time in and you will be glad you did.

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