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Beginner Guitar Lesson - How to play Pentatonic Guitar Scales
Pentatonic guitar scales are usually the first venture outside of chords for most beginners. Pentatonic scales are used in rock & blues music, and are the easiest of most scales to learn since there are one 5 possible variations of shapes to memorize for every possible key you can play in.
In this article I'm going to explain the first shape of the pentatonic scale, and give you an example for A minor. After reading this you should go grab your own guitar and give this pentatonic guitar scale a try.
What is a Pentatonic Guitar Scale?
What makes a pentatonic guitar scale different then all other scales is it only contains 5 notes. While you play more then 5 notes during the sale on the neck you only play 5 different notes, that is you play some notes more then once in a different octave. Other scales usually contain more then five notes, therefore they are not as easy to memorize the shape the scale makes on the guitar neck.
A Minor Pentatonic Scale
Before I describe the scale I want to first show you what it looks like on the guitar neck, you can see it in the first illustration below. Assume the diagram below is starting at the 4th fret of the guitar, so the 2nd fret in from the left is actually the 5th fret on your guitar neck.
This diagram shows you first what notes you play during the A minor pentatonic scale in the first shape. Notice how there are 12 notes to be played, how ever there are only 5 different notes: A, C, D G and E.
e|------|--1---|------|------|---4--|------
B|------|--1---|------|------|---4--|------
G|------|--1---|------|---3--|------|------
D|------|--1---|------|---3--|------|------
A|------|--1---|------|---3--|------|------
E|------|--1---|------|------|---4--|------
To understand what fingers to use where I've included this second diagram. Keep in mind that we're assuming the image is starting at the 4th fret, so for the first note you'd be placing for first finger on the 5th fret of the low E string.
e|------|--A---|------|------|---C--|------
B|------|--E---|------|------|---G--|------
G|------|--C---|------|---D--|------|------
D|------|--G---|------|---A--|------|------
A|------|--D---|------|---E--|------|------
E|------|--A---|------|------|---C--|------
Portability of the Pentatonic Guitar Scale
The great thing about pentatonic guitar scales is the shapes which form the scale (such as the diagram listed above) can be used all over the neck. The example provided is in A minor, but what if you wanted to play in G?
Changing the key is easy, slide the shape back two frets and have your starting note now on the 3rd fret of the low E string and you playing in the key of G. By following the exact same pattern but moving everything back two frets you'll be playing the G major pentatonic scale.
This is the first of five different shapes for the pentatonic scales. This is an easy position to start with since the root note of the scale is the first note played.
Grab your guitar and practice playing this forwards and backwards until it feels like second nature to you. When learning scales with either online guitar lessons, private guitar lessons or even a book practice is what makes perfect after you've learned the basics.
If these guitar scales seem a little too advanced for you yet, maybe consider getting a beginning guitar dvd. Learning guitar from DVD videos is becoming very popular and is far less expensive then private lessons.
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