Kids Guitar -- Lead Guitar -- The Pentatonic Scale

As I had mentioned (actually preached) earlier, lead playing is about creating licks -- actually a "library" of licks that can be played in any key. If you play an electric guitar, the sound of these licks are affected by your amp settings or the number of effects pedals that you may have.

We also talked about using the major scale as one starting point that can be used to start creating those lick thingies.

Well there are different kinds of scales. One of them that is often used in pop music is called the Pentatonic Scale.

"Penta" is latin for "5"; so you would expect the Pentatonic Scale to have how many different notes in it?

Um... Um... 5.

Take a gander at the beautiful picture below of this here scale. Note that there are 5 different forms to deal with. The number to the left of each example tells you which position the form is in. The numbers inside the circles tells you which finger to use.

Now remember what position playing means -- fingers and frets line up. If I were playing in the 3rd position for example, that means:

1st finger 3rd fret
2nd finger 4th fret
3rd finger 5th fret
4th finger 6th fret
5th finger 7th fret
6th finger 8th fret...

Oooops! Too many fingers. Humans only have 4... And their thumbs of course...

Didja notice the pretty blue and red colors on some of the circles? What's that about?

Okay, I'm gonna get to that.

There are 2 kinds of pentatonic scales -- minor and major. But they are really the SAME SCALE! They are different in how they are used.

The red circle is the root note of the F minor scale is this example. The blue circle is the root note of the G#/Ab pentatonic scale in that same example.

This is how ya use this puppy:

You can use this scale against any Fm chord progression OR any F major chord progression. Although this is not QUITE a blues scale, playing this scale against an F major chord progression (Key of F -- with these chords: F Gm Am Bb C Dm) will give you a "blues feel" against these chords. You hear this scale used a lot in this way.

Also... you can use this in the key of Ab (or G# -- though you will rarely see this key -- Ab is easier to deal with visually than all of those sharps (#) in G#.) The key of Ab major contains the chords Ab Bbm Cm Db Eb Fm.

Using this scale against an Ab progression will give you a "major sounding feel". You hear this a lot in Country music.

Remember that these forms are movable by the chromatic scale so it's important to know the notes where these red and blue circles are as you move the forms around the neck.

Alright, so ya know what I'm gonna say next right?

Memorize these scale forms.

Once you've done that, start moving them around the neck by the chromatic scale to get to all of the usual pop music keys (A Bb C D Eb E F G Ab).

Then start messing with 'em. Create licks using these scale forms. Short licks. Long licks. Anything in between. Just create the licks. Remember, if all that you play are the scales themselves, that's exactly what it's gonna sound like -- someone playing scales.

Ya don't want that. Be creative instead.

So what are ya waitin' for? Start creating!
Professor Bruno Noteworthy