Scale Familiarity

This page will help you become more familiar with the minor pentatonic scale. If you follow these ideas, you should soon be able to tell when you hear someone using the minor pent scale and be able to hear ideas in your head which relate to this very popular scale.

Let's see...

Take a look at the minor pentatonic scale in the key of Am (at the 5th fret, also called the 5th position):

The numbers at the bottom (in gray) indicate the frets, the numbers at the top (in blue) indicate the fingers you will normally use with this scale (index = 1, middle = 2, ring = 3, pinky = 4). I want you to play through this scale from high A to lower A in a single octave as shown below. Follow the numbers in red and use the fingers suggested by the previous diagram.

Play from 1 to 6 and also from 6 to 1 (red numbers). Listen to how each note relates to the A (root note). In fact, try to play the scale from 1 to 6, but put a 1 in every other note, such as: 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 1, 6. Listen hard to how each note relates to the root. This is the whole trick to using a scale, any scale. That is, if you have a feel for how each note of a scale relates to the root of that scale, you've won most of the battle.

Let's look at the same idea as the last diagram, in tablature form:

Note: If you don't know how to read tablature, go to my Learn to Read TAB page, it's very easy.

To Be Done:
QUESTION AND ANSWER GAMES WITH A BUDDY (OR TAPE)
KNOW WHERE THE BENDS ARE
A SERIES OF COOL RIFFS THAT STRING TOGETHER INTO A KILLER RUN
(LET EM KNOW AT THE END ALA "KARATE KID")