Minor Pentatonic Scale - Blues Standard

The Minor Pentatonic Scale

The most common way to start soloing asap is thru the use of the Minor Pentatonic scale. It's a 5 note scale and easy to play.

Here's the standard A Minor Pentatonic Scale - the root note or key of the scale can be found on the 5th fret on the low E-string. In this case the key of A.

Guitar Chart Diagram - A Minor Pentatonic

A Minor Pentatonic Scale

Here's this scale in A over the fret board and the patterns just repeat themselves after the 12th fret. You can see the root note A which is marked in red.

Guitar Pentatonic Scale A Minor 12 frets

Guitar Pentatonic Scale A Minor

A common blues progression to practice this scale and sound over would be A D E. This is also known as the 1 4 5 progression. You see it written down a lot using Roman numerals - I IV V.

This scale is moveable and of course can be played in any key - to play a G Pentatonic Minor scale you would start off 2 frets below the above, on the 3rd fret at the note G.

• Here's a backing track in A to practise with 'til the wee hours off the morning ;) ...

Related Solo-ing Lessons

• Advanced Blues Lesson - Targeting Notes