The Pentatonic Tricks Every Pro Uses

so when I was a younger guitar player I basically only knew one or two basic scale shapes and everything I did every solo I learned everything I tried to improvise every Jam I went to I basically did in your minor pentatonic box shape and I think that's where a lot of guitar players are at but the thing about Pentatonix is you're capable of doing so much more than your standard box shape so in today's video I'm going to show you some tips and tricks that basically every Pro guitarist I've ever known uses to get the most out of the pentatonic scale if you want to follow along at home I've got a free pdf download available in the description box below that covers everything we're going to talk about today and if you want to go deeper I have a video course called breaking out of the pentatonic box which is currently 40 off via that link while you're down there please subscribe really helps the channel out with that let's get our guitars tuned up and ready to go [Music] so learning your minor pentatonic scale is something that most guitar players start off with especially if you're getting into electric guitar this basic minor pentatonic scale shape [Music] now a pentatonic scale is a scale that contains five notes since the Pentagon has five sides pentatonic scale has five notes and in this case we're playing a minor pentatonic which means we're starting with our root note a on the sixth string fifth fret and the intervals in the scale are one the root the minor third the perfect fourth the fifth the flat seventh or minor seventh and back to the root and then it repeats of the octave [Music] but there are other places on the neck to play this scale shape and this is the first thing to learn breaking out of just that standard pentatonic box and starting to connect the different scale shapes up and down the neck will immediately help you to play more melodically and more interesting lines so for example I can go down to the scale shape below this standard a minor pentatonic and the notes in the intervals are still the same it's the same scale just played in a different position on the net back [Music] or I can go up to the next position above my standard box shape and for this one I'm going to start with my root note a here on the seventh fret of the fourth string [Music] foreign [Music] then what I can do is start to play licks and lines that combine all of these different scale shapes to move to different positions on the neck [Music] so for example this lick where I'm starting down here on the flat 7 the G and I'm sort of moving diagonally across the three different scale shapes to combine and make this interesting ascending lick [Music] or you can go the other way [Music] any combination where you're moving from different scale positions now if you reference the PDF download we're going to have all of the different scale positions notated on the neck but I don't want you to practice and learn each scale shape by just running the scales up and down because that's not how we solo we don't play a solo by going [Music] instead take those scale shapes and try and identify where the key intervals of the minor pentatonic scale are like the flat three and the flat seven and then create your own licks create your own lines using these different scale shapes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the next thing that every Pro understands when it comes to Pentatonix is being able to use major and minor pentatonics now in our previous example everything I was playing was the sort of traditional minor pentatonic scale but we can also apply the same five note scale idea to the major sound now the scale itself changes the intervals that we're pulling from the equivalent major scale change but the idea is still the same we're using a five note scale to outline a major chord instead of a minor chord so for example in the key of a major this time we're going to play a five note scale but the intervals are going to be root second third fifth sixth root and again just like the minor pentatonic scale I can play those intervals anywhere on the neck and get my major pentatonic sound so for example I could go foreign now the more keen eyed among you might have noticed something the scale shape that I just played that might look familiar if I just change the root note if I change where I'm starting the scale from you might notice something [Music] both of those are the same scale shape I'm just changing where I'm starting from if I start from a it has a more major sound because it's a major pentatonic but if I start from here the second fret of the sixth string that's F sharp now it sounds like F sharp minor pentatonic and there's a reason for that relative major and relative minor every major key has a relative minor key and every minor key has a relative major key what this means is that they share the exact same notes A major pentatonic or the a major scale for that matter has the exact same notes as F sharp minor pentatonic or F sharp minor now because we know this we can use this to our advantage when it comes to soloing most guitar players are more comfortable with the minor pentatonic scale shape than major pentatonic myself included because most of my early years were spent playing solos and learning licks and lines from the minor pentatonic scale shape well if I'm playing in a major key like a major I can take those same licks and same ideas from minor pentatonic but make it sound major just by playing the relative minor so if I play F sharp minor pentatonic over a major it's going to sound like a major tonic [Music] foreign so how do we find the relative minor or the relative major of a key well on guitar there's a simple trick that I like to remember if I'm in a major key and I want to find the relative minor so in this case a major I want to find the relative minor of a major all I'm going to do is take my root note a and I'm going to slide down a minor third which is one whole step and one half step so from a down to F sharp and if I play an F sharp minor chord here that's going to give me my relative minor in the key of A and if you're hip 2 your harmonized major scale you'll know that that's the sixth chord of the key it's based off of these sixth note of the a major scale now conversely if I'm playing in a minor key and I want to find the relative major I just go up a minor third so I go up one whole step and one half step to a to find my relative major this works in all 12 Keys let's say I'm in G major and I want to be able to play my minor pentatonic licks and lines in the key of G major well I need another relative minor which in this case is E minor so anytime I play an E minor scale over a G major chord I'm going to get a major sound [Music] so the next trick is to spice up your major and minor pentatonic scales by adding a few notes now technically these are not considered pentatonic scales anymore because we're adding notes but it doesn't really matter so the first note we're going to add is What's called the Blue Note the flat five now you've probably heard of the blues scale but in case you haven't it's really simple I'm going to take my standard minor pentatonic scale shape in the key of A minor here [Music] and I'm gonna add a note I'm gonna add the flat five which is right here or here so now I have [Music] really dissonant interesting note and it can add some color and some texture to your licks into your lines that wouldn't normally be there if you weren't emphasizing the flat 5. the interesting part is when you play this interval right here this [Music] that dissonance is what kind of pulls your ear and creates this tension in this color in your licks [Music] you can pass by it or you can like really lean on it and kind of create this texture or this color [Music] there's other sort of colorful notes that we can add to our scale to spice it up the next thing might be the third so remember we're in the key of A minor here and our scale is root flat third fourth fifth flat seventh root but what happens if I add the major third in there again it's adding some color and some texture to our lines [Music] we can kind of hint at it by slightly bending to it from the flat third up to the major third or we can do like the classic bluesy hammer on [Music] [Applause] [Music] now what if we try a couple different color tones like uh the second note of the scale we would call that the ninth if we add the Knight then we get another interesting sort of color [Music] so again anywhere I'm adding the second note from the scale which would be here or here or here I get that color [Music] the other note would be the 13th or the sixth note of the scale here and you can start to combine and use all of these different color tones to really spice up your minor pentatonic licks even from just this standard stock box scale shape [Music] foreign foreign tip is to use your Pentatonix and combine them with your Rhythm playing to create really interesting ways of outlining chords and combining Rhythm and Lead playing there's plenty of amazing examples of this but for me the first time I remember taking note of it was listening to Jimi Hendrix specifically Little Wing where he is so brilliantly playing Rhythm and Lead at the same time using largely pentatonic ideas [Music] foreign [Music] so as you're moving through that whole progression every time you get to a chord there's a way to outline that chord using the pentatonic scale based around that chord shape and this is why it's important to know your scale shapes and know where your scales and intervals are no matter where you are on the neck for example when he gets up to this first a minor chord from the G he's outlining it just by using the a blues scale the minor pentatonic scale with a flat five [Music] foreign going to the E minor but that whole lick that idea comes straight from [Music] the same thing on the E minor now we're moving up to this position that line is just from the scale and then we get to the B minor and he's using these color tones we just talked about the 9th and the 13ths [Music] and that minor pentatonic scale shape to outline that B minor chord same thing with the a minor chord so anywhere you're playing a chord there is a pentatonic scale associated with it in that position so this is where understanding not just your chord shapes knowing where your fingers go on the fretboard but understanding the intervals that make up those chords how those chords are built can really open doors for you and you're playing you can start to create Melody and lick ideas just simply around the chords that you're already playing and if you can use that and combine the other tricks we've talked about in this video being able to move up and down the neck being able to add color tones and tension tones then you can really start to unlock the fretboard and understand your pentatonic scales like I said if you want to go deeper on this I have a video course dedicated to it the breaking out of the pentatonic box course it's actually a mini course it's only about an hour long you can do it in one sitting and if you follow the link in the description box you can get a special 40 off discount code and if you'd like I'd highly recommend checking out the free pdf download that goes with this episode so that you can follow along at home if you enjoy what I do here please click the subscribe I button and leave a like it really does help the channel out and I greatly appreciate it my name is Rhett Shoal thank you so much for watching and I will catch you on the next one

Channel: Rhett Shull

Views: 182,605

Keywords: Rhett Shull, Pentatonic Scale, Guitar Lesson, Beginner Guitar, Pentatonic lick

Id: 5jm4cwiUIYU

Length: 16min 39sec (999 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2023