Sunday, February 13, 2011

Pentatonic Guitar Scales and Soloing

By Nick Dillon


Pentatonic guitar scales are usually the starting point for many guitarists when first starting out with lead guitar. They are great for soloing and can be applied to many different types of music, including blues, rock and country.

All pentatonic guitar scales, by definition have five notes.In western music there are two pentatonics commonly used, these are the minor pentatonic and the major pentatonic. A variation of the minor pentatonic scale is the frquently used blues scale.

The minor pentatonic is commonly used in rock and blues music but is not limited to these groups alone. The minor pentatonic is a staple for many guitar solos, and it is generally a very popular scale used for lead guitar playing. The minor pentatonic scale is composed of: root, flat 3, 4, 5 and flat 7 scale steps.

The minor pentatonic can be converted to the blues scale by simply adding a flat 5. This is also a very commonly used scale for not just blues but for many other types of music. When referring to pentatonics for guitar, often the blues scale will be included even though technically it is not a pentatonic scale. It is comprised of : root, flat 3, 4, flat 5, 5 and flat 7. This scale may well be the most popular scale for soloing with the guitar.

A useful and versatile scale commonly used is the major pentatonic. This is comprised of| root, 2, 3, 5, 6 degrees. This scale is also often used in blues guitar and country music but again is not limited to these musical genres. If we take both of these scales we find they are commonly used together when soloing over a twelve bar blues in conjunction with the flat 5, mentioned earlier, from the blues scale

To learn lead guitar it is crucial to learn the major pentatonic and the minor pentatonic guitar scales. Both scales can be used for guitar solos in almost any style of music and contain the same notes that the diatonic modes are formed with. These scales are generally a good starting point when learning guitar soloing.




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