Pentatonic Guitar Scales
Our earlier guitar lessons covered both the major and minor guitar scales, in various positions throughout the neck of your guitar. This next set of lessons will use the simple and easy to implement pentatonic guitar scale in its various positions on the neck of the guitar, so you can use this scale anywhere where you’re playing.
How to Play Guitar Pentatonic Scale
As its name implies, the pentatonic scale contains only five notes per octave. The major and minor guitar scales we studied in previous beginner guitar lessons each had eight notes per octave. By removing two notes from the major scale (the four and seventh scale steps), this scale is almost foolproof, the “clunkers” have been removed. If you were looking for the tricks to make soloing easier, this is certainly one of them!
But beware. Many musicians get trapped in these pentatonic scales for guitar and end up limiting themselves to it. It should be used as a tool and not a crutch.
Pentatonic Scales for Guitar: form #1
This is the root position of the major pentatonic scale. While study these how to play guitar lessons in the key of G:
Guitar Pentatonic Scale: form #2
We’ll continue forming the pentatonic scales for guitar in all five positions up the neck of the guitar as we did with our previous free guitar lessons.
Pentatonic Scales for Guitar: form #3
The next form is built off of the third scale step just as we did in our previous guitar major pentatonic scale chart.
Guitar Pentatonic Scales: form #4
As we learned in our previous learn to play guitar series, starting the scale on a different guitar scale step doesn’t change the notes we’re playing. The different fingerings allow you to play these guitar scales anywhere on the guitar neck.
The next guitar scale inversion we’re using in these electric guitar lessons starts on the fifth scale step.
Pentatonic Scales for Guitar: form #5
This final form of the guitar pentatonic scale is the most common and therefore the used version of the pentatonic scale. As stated before, the pentatonic scales for guitar is close to a magic trick to sounding great as easily as possible, and this form is perhaps the easiest to learn.
This form is also the root form of the E minor pentatonic scale (the relative minor of G major), which also sounds great when played against blues in the key of E major.
As you might have noticed the fingering for the fifth form of the G pentatonic scales for guitar and E minor pentatonic is exactly the same, the root notes (G and E, respectively) are different.
Pentatonic Guitar Scales: Review
The scale forms in these guitar lessons are extremely useful. It’s easy to just learn one form (the last one) and use it almost exclusively, but learning them all will avail the entire neck of your guitar for your use.
You can duplicate the notes shown on the low E string on the high E string, and the scale can continue both higher and lower than the notes shown on any specific scale chart or guitar tab shown here.
Have fun with these pentatonic guitar scales. The major form is useful for rock, pop, country and folk, and the minor form used against a major chord progression in the same key (E minor pentatonic scale against a chord progression in E major) sounds very bluesy.