Pentatonic Guitar Scales : Essentials For Lead Guitar

By Nick Dillon


Pentatonic guitar scales are often the starting point for many guitarists when first studying lead guitar. They are extremely useful for soloing and can be applied to many different styles 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 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.

The major pentatonic is a useful and versatile scale used in music. This is comprised of the root, 2, 3, 5, and 6. This scale is also frequently used in blues guitar and country music but again is not limited to these styles. If we take the two of these scales we find they are commonly used jointly when soloing over a twelve bar blues in conjunction with the flat 5, mentioned previously, 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.




About the Author:



You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

0 Response to "Pentatonic Guitar Scales : Essentials For Lead Guitar"

Post a Comment

Powered by Blogger