Major and Minor Blues Pentatonic Guitar Scale lesson

So in this lesson we’re going to lean two scales, the minor pentatonic scale and the major pentatonic scale and with these two scales, you can play just about anything you need to play on the guitar. In fact, I'll be honest with you. Those are the only two scales that I know how to play and I've been playing guitar for years and can play country and rock and blues. Everything I do is made up of those two scales. Those are the only two that I ever really learned because I was able to do everything I wanted to with those two scales.

So, we’re going to start with a minor pentatonic scale which is in the key of E. We’re going to be on the Key of E by the way.

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And the minor pentatonic scale, for the key of E, we’re going to go up to the 12th fret because that’s at E there.

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That will be the beginning or the root position of this scale. You'll see what I mean by root position as we go over it. Most of the notes in the scale, you're going to see a real land on this 12th fret here. So this is kind of the root position for the key of E. So the E minor pentatonic scale also known as the blues scale by the way. Some people are afraid of the minor pentatonic scale as a blues scale, same thing.

So, let me show you how to play this pattern of the minor pentatonic scale. By the way, scales are made up of different patterns. You'll be able to play that scale. If we’re in the key of E for example, you'll be able to play it here, then you'll be able to play some of it down here and then down here and then down here and all different positions on the neck. They're all the same notes. You're just playing them in different positions on the neck. But this pattern that I'm about to show you is the main pattern, the one that you'll hear most solos come from. So I think that’s probably the best place to start. So, here we go. So we’re going to start on the 15th fret—

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Then down to the 12th—

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15th—

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12th—

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14th—

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12th—

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14th—

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12th—

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14th—

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12th—

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15th—

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12th—

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And as you could see, I just changed strings after every two notes—

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Six strings, okay. And with those notes in that position, you can play all kinds of really cool solos, blues solos in the key of E. So, for example, you know I've got a rhythm going—

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That was all done using that scale—

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Now there is obviously some bends—

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And some vibrato—

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But the notes that I'm playing are all in that E minor pentatonic scale—

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Now, obviously I'm not going to explain note per note what I just did there but the point of this lesson is to show you that you now know the boundaries of how to play the blues in this position, in the E position for the E minor pentatonic scale. Now here’s what's really cool—

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I remember when I first learned this, it kind of blew my mind as to how this even works but it does—

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So, that's the blues for the key of E. now if we want to play the E major pentatonic scale, we can do the exact same pattern, remember we go 15, 12, or 15th, 12th, 14th, 12th, 14th, 12th, 14th, 12th, 15th, 12th, So remember that little shape there? I think that whole box of what I just did is a shape or pattern. Well, if we slide everything down three frets, one, two, three, we’re going to play those exact same box. So this time it's going to be 12th, 9th, 12th, 9th, 11th, 9th, 11th, 9th, 11th, 9th, 11th, 11th, 9th, 12th, 9th. I hope that make sense, what I just did there.

I just shifted everything down three frets and what that is, is that’s the major pentatonic scale; that same pattern moved down three frets will now allow you to play a major or a happy sound. So the blues is kind of, kind of sad, but this is much happier so exact same pattern, just shifted down. So I thought that was pretty cool when I first discovered them. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to play along with the I've kind of jam track here that's not really blues or well I guess you could consider kind of like almost a southern rock sounding thing. I'm going to show you the difference how you can take the same chord progression. It's just going to be E-D and A.

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Those are the chords in this and you can play blues, the minor pentatonic scale and the major pentatonic scale over those same chords and you can get completely different sounds. So let me show you what I'm talking about here. Let me turn it up a little bit. I apologize for the audio quality on this. So now the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the blues. See, that’s all in that scale.

Okay, now, I'm going to shift everything down three frets and listen to the difference of the sound—

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Hear the difference?

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Taking all kinds of fun, I'm just going between those two scales—

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And then what you do, the better you get you start to mix the two scales and there are certain points where you're going to be in the major pentatonic scale, certain points where you're going to be in the minor pentatonic scale and certain points where you're going to blend the two. There is an example of kind of blending them—

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Kind of in the blues scale, kind of in the major scale—

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So see what I'm talking about? You go back and forth between a blues scale, minor pentatonic scale and a major pentatonic scale in the key of E. And really, that’s all there is to that. A good practice for this by the way would be playing the scale. I'm going to include with this lesson if you go activemeolody.com, you can download the jam track that I just played there so you can practice along with this. But, let me show you a really good little practice technique that will help you in learning these scales.

I'll play along with it here. So we’re going to start with the minor pentatonic scale. Let me lightly play through it one time here—

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Okay, here we go—

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So that's just repeating that over and over again, playing the minor pentatonic scale, just practicing getting those notes. Now you can do the same thing. I'm going to shift it down and do the major—

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So that’s a really good practice. You kind of switch back and forth between the two—

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All kinds of things you can do with that.