Start Right with the Pentatonic Scale!

Let me start this off by saying that I dearly love the pentatonic scale. Any guitar player that has some experience behind the neck of a guitar that has heard me play will tell you this. I am a huge Zakk Wylde fan so pentatonic riffs and killer squeals are my game! With that said I cant tell you how amazing these scales are for completely opening up the neck.

These need to be practiced every single time you pick up a guitar and if you are new to them they are going to seem strange because they dont sound like the normal major scale. Thats because you are missing a lot of the notes out of the major or minor scale when making up the pentatonic scale. Hence the penta, its five glorious notes, that when played right can make you riff like no ones business.

The minor pentatonic scale, which you hear most guitar players playing, is made up of the 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the natural minor scale. Now I am not going into much theory hear, but if you know how to make up a scale then that will make sense to you. I will save the theory discussion for a later date.

This is the pentatonic scale all laid out nice and neat for you. This is what is going to start really opening the neck is all positions. If practiced and completely gotten down underneath the fingers, this will open up so many possibilities that you wont believe.

I recommend of course practicing these at a nice slow pace, setting the metronome to 60 bpm, and playing quarter notes, until every note rings completely perfect, up and down the neck. Then once it is perfect you can speed it up by three bpm. Go until it is perfect, every note ringing clear, then speed it up again, and again, and again. You get the picture here, slow practice is the key to success in guitar, and the key to speed!

The next step I want you to take is start learning some blues rock solos, anything by ZZ Top is a great start. Or even Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi has done wonderful things with the pentatonic scale! Learning some solos will open you up to the possibilities of this scale.

Now go pick up that guitar, start plunking away at these scales and really get them under your fingertips. If you are wanting to learn how to solo on the guitar this really is the best place to start. Again learning this will open the whole neck for you. I am looking forward to any comments or questions, I will answer anything that is asked, unless of course it is derogative or spammy.

Thanks for checking out my blog, and until next time!

Cheers,

Sammy Jo