Pentatonic Scales

Everyone starts here. A Pentatonic Scale contains only five tones making it easy to learn and hard to sound bad. Start with the Minor Pentatonic for Rock and Blues-based music but feel free to switch to the Major Pentatonic for Country and Pop. Once you have mastered all patterns of one, the other will be easy as secretly they are the same patterns starting from a different place.

You can view the Minor Pentatonic scale as a five-note subset of the full Natural Minor Scale and the Major Pentatonic as a five-note subset of the Major Scale but do not skip ahead! Many scales fit nicely over one of these scales - mastering these first will make your life easier.

You can get by learning just one of these pentatonic scales, and many do, but adding one or two extra notes can add a new colour to your playing. Learning the pentatonic first will help your brain differentiate between the bread-and-butter notes of the pentatonic scale and the added colour of new scales.

When you are ready to move on, check out the Blues Scale or the Natural Minor Scale if you have learnt the Minor Pentatonic or the Major Scale if you have learnt the Major Pentatonic.

New to guitar scales?

Learn how to apply these patterns to any key.

Minor Pentatonic in G, Position 1

Next Steps

• Learn the Note Names
• The Major Pentatonic
• The Blues Scale
• The Natural Minor Scale