Lead Guitarists: Understanding Minor Pentatonic and Blues Scales

In this article we are going to provide you guidance about our first scale, the Minor Pentatonic scale. Pentatonic is a remarkable scale to learn, specially for guitar. It is normally the 1st scale. It is pretty simple, and it works very well over simple chord progressions, and is a great place to start practicing improvisation for soloing.

The fundamental information about the Minor Pentatonic Scale

Pentatonic scale has 5 notes (hence the Penta- in its name). This is the 1st scale. It is very interesting because most scales you will memorize in the future have 7 notes in them. It has only 2 notes on every string and this makes the pentatonic scale easier to play. The Pentatonic scale includes both major and minor – we will concentrate on the Minor Pentatonic scale in this lesson.

In the scales intro any scale can be described by a plain numeric pattern, and the pentatonic scale can also be described in the same fashion.

Its formula is: 3 2 2 3 2

Lets see how this works in an exemplar, for example G Minor Pentatonic.

We start with G as our root note, and add up each step of the pattern to acquire the next note:

G + 3 semitones is Bb Bb + 2 semitones is C C + 2 semitones is D D + 3 semitones is F F + 2 semitones is G

Thus there you acquire G minor pentatonic notes that are G, Bb, C, D, F, G. This formula can be implemented with any other base note for the exact scale entirely depending upon your choice.

Moreover, you can move these patterns up and down the neck. For instance, if you want a minor Pentatonic, then you work it out as follows:

The base note A is 2 semitones up from G, so just move every of these rules up 2 frets and voila, you will find patterns for A minor pentatonic.

Also, the patterns repeat up the neck after the first five – hence if you want to climb up higher, start again with the 1st rule played with the G root note played on the 15th fret instead of the 3rd fret.

The Blues Scale

Another scale, very closely linked to the minor pentatonic scale is the blues scale which is used in blues. An attitional passing note to the pentatonic musical scale is normally added up by the blues players which is technically known as a flattened 5th – that means an additional note in between notes 3 and 4 of the pentatonic scale. When this note is added to the minor pentatonic scale you get the blues scale. The rule changes when you add that extra note to it and it becomes like this: 3 2 1 1 3 2, and our example G minor Pentatonic becomes G, Bb, C, Db, D, F, G when rewritten as the blues scale.

The Minor Pentatonic Scale in Action

Now we are going to talk about that how to play the Minor Pentatonic and the Blues scale. Both the Pentatonic and the Blues scales are suitable for playing Rock and 12 bar blues with. Lets focus on 12 bar blues – a very pretty simple concept that is considered as a source of some amazing music over the years.

The chords you apply are a type of I, IV, V progression – what that means isn’t really critical at this point, but the chords you would use with a G minor or Pentatonic scale would be as follows:

G – G – G – G – C – C – G – G – D – C – G – D This chord sequence enables you to play sequences of notes from any of the pentatonic boxes and you will acquire a bluesy kind of improvisation going.