Pentatonic Scale Guitar Patterns.
The pentatonic scale guitar patterns are the building blocks to budding guitarists. To enter the temple of guitar gods you first must walk. Its incredibly easy to start learning to solo. Learning a few patterns will open the doors to a world of guitaring adventure.
Your desire will drive your ability to new heights even from the first day. Picking up your guitar is the first step on your journey and you will be freed.
Learning Scales is Painless!
Pentatonic scale guitar patterns are your key to the Ferrari literally. There are scales held within the patterns we will learn so you will learn Minor, Major and Blues pentatonic scales all inside one initial pattern.
The Five Pentatonic scales effortlessly join together and in no time your guitaring will be unlimited across the whole fretboard.
- E)—————————————————-
- B)—————————————————-
- G)—————————————————-
- D)—————————————————-
- A)—————————————————-
- E)—————————————————-
Pattern One Lets Start!
Pattern One of the pentatonic scale guitar patterns is the beginning to your journey. This pattern will allow you to start soloing straight away. Let’s start in the Key of A minor with our first finger on the 5th fret low E string. This note is A and is the root note of our key. I will discuss Keys and how you know what key to use HERE.
This is a very popular key to get started and there are lots of backing tracks to solo over.
Note the numbering on the diagram above. These numbers relate to your fingers. The one (1) is your first finger and the five (5) is your little finger. Yes your pinky will get a workout.
Finger Strength & Coordination.
It’s pretty important to get your picking and your playing fingers in sync. Building some level of independence with your fingers may take a little time but expect you have been playing chords already so you may be OK. If your having trouble do this simple playing exercise up and down the neck.
Please note: If viewing this post on a mobile please use horizontal mode so the exercises are readable.
- E)———————————————————–1-2-3-4–
- B)————————————————-1-2-3-4————
- G)———————————–1-2-3-4————————–
- D)————————1-2-3-4————————————-
- A)————1-2–3-4————————————————
- E)-1-2-3-4————————————————————–
Pentatonic Scale Five Notes.
The Pentatonic scales is a scale with only five notes. A full scale normally has seven notes so this particular scale is some what abbreviated.
- A – B- C – D – E – F – G – A
- A – – – C – D – E – — G – A
The Pentatonic scale loses the 2nd 6th notes in the scale leaving the Root being the 1 note followed by the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th notes in the scale.
Root Notes 3×3 Rule.
Root notes are crucial when soloing. These notes are the root note of the scale and resolve any group of notes you may play in a solo. The notes you can see noted in RED in the diagram above.
In the beginning you can start playing any note but it’s advisable to initially end your run on one of these. You may notice that from the first A root note on the thick or low E string the next A note is Three strings down and up the three frets up the neck.
This is where the 3×3 rule comes from. It is pretty consistent all across the guitar neck. The B string does complicate this a little but for now we will ignore the pesky B string issue.
Pick and Choose.
To get started with your pentatonic scale guitar practice let’s get you picking. Picking has many variations but to start let’s just use down picking strokes. If you can say the notes as you play them can be a help but not crucial. The notes in the Am key consist of A – C – D – E – G -A.
Exercise One. Pentatonic Scale Guitar.
The first exercise is to play the first octave from A to A with just down strokes. Play through the five notes with down strokes and I recommend saying the notes out loud. This will help you to remember them and informed the make-up of the scale.
2. Pick Down: V V V V V V
A C D E G A
- E)—————————————————-
- B)—————————————————-
- G)—————————————————-
- D)————————5—-7——————––
- A)————–5—7——————————-–
- E)—–5—8—————————————-–
I recommend playing even these beginning exercises with a backing track in Am. What you will hear is how the Root A note resolves even when just playing up and down the Am pentatonic scale.
Once you can play down the scale try and immediately start at the Root A again without pausing. This will help you learn to jump back. It breaks up the linier playing only going one direction.
Exercise Two. Pentatonic Scale Guitar.
In this exercise I would like you to start at the 3rd string A root note and reverse the flow back up the neck. This will let you ascend and descend equally as well.
2. V V V V V V
A – G – E – D – B – A
- E)—————————————————-
- B)—————————————————-
- G)—————————————————-
- D)–7—5——————————————-
- A)———–7—-5———————————
- E)———————-8—–5———————
It is important to be able to ascend and descend through the scale equally and smoothly. Play from the Octave A back up the scale then repeat the exercise without pausing. See if you can do this smoothly before continuing.
Exercise 3. Pentatonic Scale Guitar.
Let’s now play through the whole pentatonic scale guitar patterns 1. Don’t play to fast OK. Take your time and play down then back up again. This will bring you some familiarity with pattern 1. Let’s stay with just down strokes with your pick for now.
- E)—————————————————5—8
- B)——————————————5—-8——–
- G)——————————-5—-7——————-
- D)———————5—7——————————
- A)———–5—-7—————————————
- E)–5—-8————————————————
- E)–8—5———————————————–
- B)———-8—-5————————————-
- G)——————–7—-5—————————-
- D)—————————–7—-5——————-
- A)—————————————7—5———-
- E)————————————————8—-5
Consistent Progress.
Use the backing track and play at the pace of the backing track if you can. If you find it’s to fast for you initially find a slower track or a metronome. It’s important to play smoothly through the pattern 1 at your own pace.
It’s likely you will find the top and bottom easy but transitioning through the middle of the pattern a little harder and remain smooth. Do your best!
Expression – The Bend Up.
Pentatonic scale guitar playing needs emotion and other than just playing up and down the scales we can add expression with many techniques. One of these is the string bend.
String bands can be done with any finger with practice. If your playing on an acoustic it may be more difficult if you have heavier strings. You can replace the strings with a set of 9s which are lighter in gauge and easier to push and pull.
Bending both up and down are popular techniques. To accompany this technique is pre bending then releasing back to the original starting note. To practice this technique and be accurate you need to know the sound of the note your playing as well as the target note.
Exercise 4. Bending.
Let’s start on the G string 7th fret. Play this note and listen to it. Next move up 2 frets and play this note. Again listen as this is the target note you will bend up to. (See picture above for reference. It should look like this.)
Play the note G string, 7th fret and bend it up with your finger or fingers if needed till it sounds like the target note. Hold it there for a moment then release the tension back to the original note. Congratulations you just played a one step bend then a release. Great work!
- E)—————————————————-
- B)—————————————————-
- G)—-7~~—9~~—–7 bu 9~~rel 7———
- D)—————————————————-
- A)—————————————————-
- E)—————————————————-
The annotation used is somewhat common when writing tabliture or tab as its more commonly know. It’s sometimes limiting when writing a post so I may use slightly different tab to express an idea.
Bu = Bend string Up.
Rel = Release ( back to original note).
~~~ = Let note ring out.
Sl / = Slide up to a given note. Eg: G — 7 sl 9—-
In this example you play the G string 7th fret note and then slide up to the 9th fret.
Pentatonic Scale Guitar 1 Conclusion.
I hope this first lesson has sparked your desire to learn more. In the next lesson we look at the second pentatonic pattern as well as more solo techniques. Adding vibrato for example will bring more expression to your playing.
Author.
Brendon has played guitar from age 12 and has played in bands on his travels working around the world on military aircraft over 20 years. He is an Expatriate Aussie living in Thailand.
