When you start to dive into learning scales as a guitarist, more often than not, the first scale you’ll learn is the minor pentatonic. Many guitarists are familiar with the two note per string box shapes that cover the breadth of the neck. With that in mind, it’s also one of the first ones guitarists tend to ditch as move past the five note scale and discover more complex scales. But wait! Don’t give up on the humble minor pentatonic scale shape just yet..
We’re going to look into a way you can reapply your minor pentatonic scales by using a three note per string approach. This can help to exploit the minor pentatonic into generating various technical and melodic sounding runs.
Firstly, let’s take a look at all of the two note boxes available to us. To keep things consistent, we’ll stick with G as our root note throughout.
Looking at all of the shapes available to you mapped out like this, you can start to focus on three note runs around each two note box. Start at the very beginning on the third fret of the bottom E string and you have the root a flat third and then the perfect fourth. To continue on to the A string, you’d head to the fifth fret for the fifth and then the flat seventh before landing back on the root note. Let’s see how this looks without so many notes in view.
Minor Pentatonic Up The Neck
This illustrates the G minor pentatonic over multiple octaves. It’s a bit of a stretch for your fingers, but lends itself nicely to players who use legato, both with hammer ons and slides. Visualising your pentatonic shapes using this three note per string method, can open up various possibilities for new riffs whilst also connecting all of the boxes together.
Minor Pentatonic in a Box
To double down on linking the two note per string shapes together, we can also create boxes based around using three notes per string.
Putting three notes per string into a box makes the minor pentatonic look more like a full scale. Note, however, that you’ll repeat certain degrees of the scale in succession. The first instance of this being the perfect fourth played at the end of the first group of three on the E, and then as the first note in the notes on the A string. This is a fantastic way to work on your legato skills. Just be prepared for a stretch!
Minor Pentatonic on Two Strings
If you want to take it a bit further, why not stick to just two strings? Next, we’ll look at how you can work the three note per string mentality but restrict yourself to just the top E and B strings.
This example mixes things up a bit as by isolating this method to just two strings, you’ll repeat certain degrees of the scale. This can generate interesting phrases and lines whilst also giving you an opportunity to develop your speed and precision.
There’s plenty of other ways to apply this way of looking at the minor pentatonic, and indeed the major pentatonic and other scale shapes. Don’t be afraid to mix things up by starting at different places on the neck or degrees of the scale. Have fun with it, write some spicy riffs and lead lines and use it to develop your familiarity with the scale and the fretboard. Check out this video on songs that use the pentatonic scale.
Of course, if you need a more in depth analysis of this way of thinking when it comes to scales, click here and claim a lesson with me, absolutely free!