Mid-Week Guitar Lesson 🎸

Guitar Newsletter August

Hello, Reader,

Monday we talked about the 3 variations of a Pentatonic scale:

1) minor
2) Major
3) Blues

Josh one of my readers replied with a great question that I didn't fully cover in that lesson:

Question: "why is it minor or major depending on where you start the shape?"

Answer : It all comes down to which scale degrees you're starting on. For example in G Major.. if we start on G using shape 2 below we get:

G A B D E – then those notes are repeated until we run out of notes on the first string.
That's a 1-2-3-5-6 of the G Major Scale. That Major 3rd is why we call it a Pentatonic Major Scale.

For minor Pentatonics we're starting the scale on our relative minor or 6th of the scale. So in G that would be E minor.

(Count G1-A2-B3-C4-D5-E6👈)

Using the 1st Pentatonic shape below start that on the E note (open or 12th position)

Same notes in a different order:
E-G-A-B-D

Flipping our scale thinking to an E root

E is the root, G is the minor 3rd (or flatted 3rd) 👈.. and that's what makes it minor!
Stay tuned Friday and we'll get into the Blues scale variation.

In the meantime if you want to take a deep dive into scales, theory, and technique, grab my 7 Day Practice Routine which now includes a free 30 day Practice Planner.

Monday's Pentatonic Scale Lesson

I've always told my guitar students that there are many ways to learn technique and music theory. You should never get all of your info from just one source and keep an open mind to learning different ideas from different players... but...

..what I can't stand is when I see online creators and so-called guitar gurus making simple concepts soooo much harder and more time consuming.

As a practicing musician TIME is our most valuable commodity... with that in mind lets take a look at Pentatonic Scales:

A while back I wrote an article on Pentatonic scales along with a brief history on their usage in Modern Music. You can read that lesson here:
https://lifein12keys.com/guitar-lesson-pentatonic-scale-shapes-history-and-use/

I've seen a bunch of books and websites showing these in 15 or more different patterns. While it is healthy as a musician to get perspectives on different ways to do things.. this is NOT one of those times. Why?

We get the same 15 scale shapes in just 5. Let's take a look in 3 steps.

1) Minor Pentatonic

Learn that first Pentatonic shape above... starting on the circled root note (red) you get most every killer Rock, Blues, and Metal solo vibe you could ask for. Start on the circled root in every shape and you've got minor Pentatonic all. over the fretboard.

2) Major Pentatonic

Starting on the Squared root notes we get all of our Major Pentatonic scales using... wait for it... THE SAME SHAPES.

This is where Country and Rockabilly players get a lot of their signature sounds. You also hear this in cross-over styles like Bluegrass and even far Eastern Asian Music from Japan.

3) The Blues Scale

Nope, you don't need to learn any more shapes to incorporate the blues scale... just add that hollow circled note (the flatted 5th of the minor scale) to get your Blues on!

One caveat... start those Blues scales on your minor roots

That's it... Pentatonic Scales Major, minor, and minor Blues all from the same 5 shapes. 🤘

Until Next Time!, Guitarist & Author - Craig Smith