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[Demonstration]
So, what I was just playing was just improvising with the minor pentatonic scale and that’s what this lesson going to be all about—learning how minor pentatonic scales are made and learning probably the most common shape for that scale too.
So let’s learn how to make a minor pentatonic scale first. If you know your minor scale, like a regular G minor shape scale, all you’re going to do is leave out the 2nd degree and the 6th degree of that scale. So if we have a shape right here; something like this—
[Demonstration]
All you have to do is leave out the 2nd degree and the 6th degree. So you go 1, skip 2, go to 3, 4, 5, leave out 6, 7, and back to 1. So let’s learn a shape for the minor pentatonic scale and you’re going to see this shape everywhere in every kind of music—rock, pop, metal, jazz, everything; so this one is pulling you probably going to want you to spend a lot of time with.
So let’s take our index finger and put it on our G note, on our low E string on our 3rd fret and play that note. Then you’re going to come up to your 6th fret with your pinky finger, play that note. Change strings over to the A string, play the 3rd fret with your index finger again, grab your third finger on the 5th fret right there, play the next string with D string. Play the 3rd fret with the index finger again and go and take your finger on the 5th fret. Same thing for the next string on the 3rd fret with the index finger right there, then your third finger’s going to grab the 5th fret. The next string, the B string, we are going to grab the 3rd fret and then the next to that string is on the 6th fret with the pinky. And the last string, the E string, you are going to grab the 3rd fret with your index finger and then you are going to grab the last part of the scale is going to be our pinky on the 6th fret on the highest string; so that whole shape for you real quick.
[Demonstration]
And you are going to come back down too.
[Demonstration]
Okay so a couple of things to remember; when you are practicing this scale, always use alternate picking and always make sure your left hand is relaxed and you have a good positioning right behind the fret and make sure your thumb is behind the fret board just like everything else we have been talking about. So listen to a lot of blues; probably blues and rock step and keep your out for the scale and you’ll start to recognize it right away and a lot of your favorite recordings.
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