Easy minor pentatonic scale soloing

Want to become a confident neo-soul lead guitarist? Knowing your scales is a crucial skill that you’ll need to create meaningful solos when it's your time to shine.

Pentatonic power

Guitarists in every style draw on pentatonic scales to create impactful and memorable melodies – neo soul is no exception.

• In this lesson, we’ll take a closer look at the minor pentatonic scale and how to use it to its fullest potential when building solos.
• Throughout this Learning Pathway, we’ll reference how minor and major pentatonic scales relate to the major scale.
• For now, focus on developing the ability to visualize the minor and major pentatonic shapes as they relate to the same position on your fretboard.

It's all relative

Each minor pentatonic scale has a "relative" major pentatonic scale that contains the exact same notes.

• These related scales are like two sides of the same coin
• As you’ll see in the diagram below, A minor pentatonic and C major pentatonic share the same notes.
• The only difference is that they start in different places, and we view them through different lenses (major vs. minor).

C major pentatonic

A minor pentatonic

A minor is the relative minor to C major, and vice versa, C major is the relative major to A minor.

Getting the most out of pentatonic scales

Pentatonic scales are moveable across the neck.

• Once you have a handle on how the minor and major pentatonic shapes are related, you’ll start to understand that both can be interchangeable when playing over the chords in a key.
• For example, if you were playing over a chord progression in the key of E major, you could switch between using E major pentatonic and C# minor pentatonic over all of the chords.
• Similarly, if you were playing over a chord progression in the key of C# minor, you could continue to use E major pentatonic and C# minor pentatonic scales to solo.

E major pentatonic

C# minor pentatonic

Taking scales to the next level

Once you’ve got the basic minor and major pentatonic shapes down, you need to work on making them come alive.

Adding character to the notes with the techniques below will take your scales from notes to music:

• Adding vibrato
• Sliding into notes
• Incorporating hammer ons and pull offs
• Bending notes in the scale

Next up, some workouts to help your hands get in shape.

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Exercise 1. C#m pentatonic up & down

Let’s take it easy by ascending and descending the C# pentatonic scale.

Melanie’s top tip:

• This is a great exercise to practice vibrato on.
• Try upward, downward, and side-to-side vibrato if you’re feeling experimental.

Exercise 2. Triplet

Awesome work, now let’s add some triplets.

Sam’s top tip:

• This is a Stevie Wonder-inspired exercise.
• If you need help grabbing the triplet feel, think about the pentatonic run heard in Isn’t She Lovely.

Exercise 3. Three-note motifs

This next idea is sure to get the audience on your side!

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Jam

Now it’s your turn to stretch out on a brand-new jam. You’ve earned it.

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Fantastic. In Day 4, we'll tackle the inspiring world of double stops.