4/14/2011

Pentatonic Guitar Scales : Essentials For Lead Guitar

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.

By definition, all pentatonic guitar scales have five notes. The two common pentatonic scales used in western music are the minor pentatonic and the major pentatonic scales. A similar scale to the minor pentatonic scale is the commonly used blues scale.

The minor pentatonic is commonly used in blues and rock music but is not limited to these musical genres. Many guitar solos rely on the minor pentatonic, and it is generally a very popular scale used for lead guitar playing. The minor pentatonic is composed of: root, flat 3, 4, 5 and flat 7 scale degrees.

The minor pentatonic scale can be changed to the blues scale by adding a flat 5. This is also a very popular scale for not just blues but for many other types of music. When discussing pentatonics for guitar, often the blues scale will be included even though technically it is not a pentatonic scale. It contains : root, flat 3, 4, flat 5, 5 and flat 7 scale degrees. This scale is often regarded as the most popular scale for lead guitar playing.

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 minor pentatonic, blues and the major pentatonic guitar scales. These scales can be used for guitar solos in almost any style of music and contain the common notes that the diatonic modes are formed with. These scales are genearally a good starting point when learning lead guitar.




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