Wow I am not sure where to start on this one – we covered a bunch of stuff tonight, I’ve really got my work cut out for me. I guess I will start with pentatonic scales since that is the bulk of what we covered. There are really only 5 shapes that cover all pentatonic scales – learning them will be the tough part.

Tonight we covered starting with an E root note for the scales – acknowledging that simply shifting the root note up or down the neck totally changes what scale you’re playing – and based on where you start the shape changes weather it is a Major or Minor Pentatonic…fun stuff even though a bit heady.

so 5 shapes.

Shape One: (for the E pentatonic the root notes on this are simply the open strings)

Shape 2:

Shape 3:

Shape 4:

Shape 5:

The sixth shape to complete the octave is really just the first shape played again.

A couple of noteworthy things here.

1. The back notes of one pentatonic are the front notes of the previous – they all fit together much like a puzzle (a really really complicated puzzle)
2. Here’s where it gets really heady – the root note separates the major from the minor so on shape one for example – playing the open E string first makes the scale an E Minor Pentatonic – Playing the G note on the E string (3rd fret) first makes it an E major pentatonic

We also dealt with writing the scales out tonight – all 12 of them – but I need to wrap my head around that one a bit more before I dive into trying to”explain” it.  So stay tuned for the “Guitar Lesson 3a” post.

Ran across

this link after posting – worth checking out.