How does one play the Minor Pentatonic Scale?

Norman86 · 2011-02-09T14:59:43+00:00

Hi guys... Please excuse me if this is a stupid question. What i would like, is a simple explanation of how to play the minor pentatonic scale? I tried th...

How does one play the Minor Pentatonic Scale?

Tonedef

Those diagrams confuse the hell out of me, I've got no idea how to interpret them.

Would you be so kind as to take the top left one and explain what I'm looking at? Purdy please sugar on top? :-[

FruitarGeek

E|---------------------------------5--8-----------------------------
B|--------------------------5-(7)-8--------------------------------
G|--------------------5-7------------------------------------------
D|---------------5-7------------------------------------------------
A|----------5-(6)-7-------------------------------------------------
E|----5--8----------------------------------------------------------

This is if I understand you correct, although this will be all over the net, this is the fingerings of how to play the Minor Pentatonic. The notes in brackerts are simply for the blues pentatonic. Very cool scale!

In terms of when and where to use it, typically over a minor key progression. So the above example is Aminor (the 5 is on A root on E string). Find out about your relative minors, so for example if you playing in the key of G major (or you know you playing in the key of G major) you need to play the E Minor Pentatonic. To work out relative minor, the general rule of thumb is to count 4 chromatic notes back from the first Major chord. But learning theory will make this easier to find. Usually however, you can get away with this scale by refering to the first chord of a song ?

FruitarGeek

Warren beat me to it haha

Norman86

downloading the video.... Thanks...

Okay, So i would interpret that like tab?!

Forgetting the rest of the neck and only concentrating on that specific diagram?!

1st finger fret 2, 4th finger fret 5 and so on?!

Fruitar...

That confuses the hell out of me... im just gonna ignore that post for a few months if you dont mind! :-[

Warren

Tonedef wrote: Those diagrams confuse the hell out of me, I've got no idea how to interpret them.

Would you be so kind as to take the top left one and explain what I'm looking at? Purdy please sugar on top? :-[

Haha, ok.

It's your guitar neck, your fingerboard, held up vertically. The lines going down are your six strings. The lines going across are your frets.

Each circle is a fingertip, placed in that fret, to play that particular note. The number in the circle is a suggestion as to which finger to use (your left hand fingers are numbered from 1 to 4, from index finger to pinky).

So, to play the scale, you would start with finger 1 fretting the note at the third fret of your guitar, on the 6th string (the thickest string). The next note would be on the seventh fret, using your pinky.

You would then shift your hand to the 5th string, moving finger 1 to the third fret of the 5th string, and so on through the whole pattern.

It's like a chord diagram, only you're not going to hold down all the notes at once, but play them one at a time in order up (or down) the strings.

Does that help?

Norman86

Thanks for the BIG explanation Warren...

thing is, i was only looking for a simple explanation! yes, there is a lot of explanations, but nothing concise and easy to understand!

Your second explanation makes a LOT more sense!!

With this scale though, you can start it on any fret right?

One last thing, with the diagram on Justinguitar... what the heck is the R for in the circle???

Thanks again!

Squonk

Norman

The easiest way to learn this is to learn the A minor barre chord shape. And then you start on the 5th fret playing the scale exactly like Warren has explained.

So you play the chord and the pattern without losing too much of the chord shape

Warren

Norman86 wrote: Thanks for the BIG explanation Warren...

thing is, i was only looking for a simple explanation! yes, there is a lot of explanations, but nothing concise and easy to understand!

Your second explanation makes a LOT more sense!!

With this scale though, you can start it on any fret right?

One last thing, with the diagram on Justinguitar... what the heck is the R for in the circle???

Thanks again!

That's about as small as explanations get ?

If you mean "Can I start the shape on any fret?" then, yes, you can. You would start on the note that corresponds to the progression you're playing over.

The "R" stands for "Root" note. In other words, the note you start playing on.

For example, if you play this scale over an A chord, the "strongest" note of that chord (because a chord is just a collection of notes) is, surprise surprise, the A note. This is called the "Tonic" note.

You'll therefore start playing this scale on an A note too (5th fret of 6th string, for example), which means your playing will target the strong notes in the underlying chord, which is what makes it sound "good". Try it: you'll hear that when you hit those A notes, it will "resolve" really nicely to the chord.

It's useful to be aware of where the root notes are in the shapes, because those are the notes you'll often target when playing a solo, because they help you resolve to the underlying chords, giving your musical statements more finality, more impact.

Warren

Squonk wrote: Norman

The easiest way to learn this is to learn the A minor barre chord shape. And then you start on the 5th fret playing the scale exactly like Warren has explained.

So you play the chord and the pattern without losing too much of the chord shape

+1 Squonks

That will help you to "see" how many notes in the chord are similar to the notes of the scale you're playing over it.

Tonedef

Warren wrote: It's your guitar neck, your fingerboard, held up vertically. The lines going down are your six strings. The lines going across are your frets.

Each circle is a fingertip, placed in that fret, to play that particular note. The number in the circle is a suggestion as to which finger to use (your left hand fingers are numbered from 1 to 4, from index finger to pinky).

So, to play the scale, you would start with finger 1 fretting the note at the third fret of your guitar, on the 6th string (the thickest string). The next note would be on the seventh fret, using your pinky.

You would then shift your hand to the 5th string, moving finger 1 to the third fret of the 5th string, and so on through the whole pattern.

It's like a chord diagram, only you're not going to hold down all the notes at once, but play them one at a time in order up (or down) the strings.

Does that help?

You get a +1! You sure went into a lot of detail, I understand tab but these diagrams were einsteinian scribblings.

That said, it's still not clear from your explanation whether these are chord fingerings or just one note at a time. ???

Norman86

one note at a time ?

[deleted]

Norman86 wrote:

Tonedef wrote:
That said, it's still not clear from your explanation whether these are chord fingerings or just one note at a time. ???

If you can play that as a chord, I'll pay money to see it. ?

aubs1

Stratisfear wrote: If you can play that as a chord, I'll pay money to see it. ?

ROLMAO!!!......... How much?? I may be tempted to try...... ? ?

Warren

Tonedef wrote:

You get a +1! You sure went into a lot of detail, I understand tab but these diagrams were einsteinian scribblings.

That said, it's still not clear from your explanation whether these are chord fingerings or just one note at a time. ???

Thanks ?

I'll quote myself here:

It's like a chord diagram, only you're not going to hold down all the notes at once, but play them one at a time in order up (or down) the strings.

So yeah, one note at a time.

Tonedef

Heh, that 6th fret is some crazy pinky barreing shit!

That was part of the confusion - I couldn't figure that out. Seeing as the stuff on say strings 5 and 6 or 1, 2 and 3 are perfectly doable if you try and chord it in different ways.

I take it "blues" is not really about chording, more about picking and nice clean sustained tones? (Yeah I know nothing ?)

Tonedef

Aubs1 wrote:
Stratisfear wrote: If you can play that as a chord, I'll pay money to see it. ?
ROLMAO!!!......... How much?? I may be tempted to try...... ? ?

DO IT.

Norman86

Stratisfear wrote: If you can play that as a chord, I'll pay money to see it. ?

Are the people with 6 fingers excluded? And are you only allowed to use one hand? Or can you use your toes too? ?

Bob-Dubery

Tonedef wrote: Heh, that 6th fret is some crazy pinky barreing shit!

I have nowhere near Warren's skill on the guitar, and I have long scale (stratocaster scale length) acoustic guitars with .13s on them AND I've had surgery on my left hand and I can make the 6th fret easily enough.

Are you finding it physically hard to get your pinky there, or is just another issue of you can do it but it takes time?

If the former then you probably want to get your guitar's setup looked at.

Warren

Tonedef wrote:
I take it "blues" is not really about chording, more about picking and nice clean sustained tones? (Yeah I know nothing ?)

"Blues" is a whole musical genre, with some very fuzzy edges ?

Some kinds of blues players have nice clean picking techniques and fluid lead lines (like Matt "Guitar" Murphy) and just as many others play wonderfully gritty, dissonant and syncopated lines (like Stevie Ray Vaughn).

You get "Jazzy" bluesers like Robben Ford, you get "Rocky" bluesers like Joe Bonamassa. And, of course, most people feel that the blues goes all the way back to Robert Johnson and an acoustic guitar. Acoustic blues can incorporate slide, fingerpicking, choked-strum patterns etc. All kinds of players, all still blues.

One thing that's interesting is that the major and minor pentatonic scales form an important part of the repertoire of all blues players, really. The "Blues" scale is really just the minor pentatonic with an extra "blue" note added to the scale (and therefore an extra note in the pattern on the fretboard).

A good place to start your blues education is to learn about the structure of the basic 8 bar and 12 bar blues. Many, many blues standards (standards are just songs that are widely accepted parts of the blues repertoire) are based around these chord progressions or variations thereof. And your pentatonics will fit over them perfectly. ?

If you wanted to play a basic 12 bar blues in the key of A, you could play the following.

A / / / | A / / / | A / / / | A / / /
D / / / | D / / / | A / / / | A / / /
E / / / | D / / / | A / / / | E / / /

Where each slash is a beat or count: 1..2..3..4...etc.

So you would strum a rhythm like:

DUM...DUM...DUM...DUM (1..2..3..4)

And when you want to "swing" it a little, count it like this (and do little "double-strums")

da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM

And you're on your way to playing the blues baby ?

Warren

X-rated Bob wrote:
Tonedef wrote: Heh, that 6th fret is some crazy pinky barreing shit!
I have nowhere near Warren's skill on the guitar, and I have long scale (stratocaster scale length) acoustic guitars with .13s on them AND I've had surgery on my left hand and I can make the 6th fret easily enough.

Are you finding it physically hard to get your pinky there, or is just another issue of you can do it but it takes time?

If the former then you probably want to get your guitar's setup looked at.

You are too kind Bob ?

I think Tonedef was under the impression that you had to fret the entire diagram as a chord, and therefore had to create a mini barre with his pinky. ?

Don't worry Tonedef, you'll still need that pinky barre for chords like a G13 (well, one of its positions anyhow)...