Pentatonic scales are a guitar player’s best friend. And for some good reasons:
- You can learn them pretty quickly
- There are only 2 fingers per string in the most common shapes, so it’s easy to keep track of your finger patterns
- Most people feel like they can get pretty good at pentatonic scales, pretty quickly
Guitar players from all different styles love to play pentatonic scales.
But most of them don’t really have the full picture. Even intermediate players usually only know how to play one, maybe 2 of the scale shapes.
And they’re missing out.
There are really (at least) 5 common shapes that cover the entire fretboard with pentatonic scales. And there are good reasons to learn all of them:
- Each shape you learn makes different sections of the scale easier for you to play
- Different pentatonic scale shapes let you play at different places on the neck
- Something that is hard for you to play in one pattern will be easy for you in the next
We’re going to cover the basic patterns for the major and minor pentatonic scales on the guitar. We’ll start with simple one octave patterns, and then look at how to connect them up the guitar neck.
And finally, we’ll look at the 5 shape system that will simplify the whole process for you.
Understanding Pentatonic Scales for Guitar
There are 2 main types of pentatonic scales you can play on your guitar. Technically, any 5 note group can be a pentatonic scale – but these are the big ones.
Your two main options are minor pentatonic scales, and major pentatonic scales.
Minor pentatonic scales are probably what you are most familiar with.
I still remember the very first pentatonic scale I learned. It was what I now call the 6th string minor pentatonic scale. You might call it an “E Shape” if you use the CAGED system.
I learned it from a guitar magazine, and I played it to death. Over the years I’ve found that if a new student knows just one scale, it’s probably this one.
For a while I just called it “the guitar magazine scale” – but that’s a little outdated these days.
Minor Pentatonic
Minor pentatonic scales are built with a root (1), minor/flat third (b3), perfect fourth (4), perfect fifth (5), and a minor/flat seventh (b7).
Major Pentatonic
Major pentatonic scales are the other side of the coin. You’ll hear these sounds a lot in bluegrass and jam-band scenarios, as well as in jazz.
They’re the “happier sounding” pentatonic scale.
Major pentatonic scales are built with a root (1), major second (2), major third (3), perfect fifth (5), and a major sixth (6).
As far as labeling the intervals, I like to keep things practical.
I don’t think too hard about the “perfect, major or minor” designations of intervals. These are great for theory class, but they can end up confusing the issue when we start really getting into playing.
So I’ll always use the numbers, with a flat as needed – 6, b7, 5, and so on. It’s the way these intervals show up in our scale diagrams. And it’s how most jazz musicians describe them in conversation.
It’s just a more direct description – with less thinking for you to do before you can put it to work.
Pentatonic scales are a great foundation for your guitar skills overall – and an important tool for developing improvisation chops.
Let’s take a look at the one octave patterns available to us with these pentatonic scale shapes. With these easy patterns, you’ll build up your vocabulary in no time!
One-Octave Pentatonic Scale Patterns
There’s a concept in guitar about “strong side” and “weak side” finger patterns. I first learned about it in my time playing classical guitar.
But I’ve also heard Corey Christiansen talk about it in his clinics. It’s a good theory for how our fingers work on the fretboard.
The strong side of your hand is the index and middle finger. So patterns starting with these fingers are “strong side” patterns.
The weaker side of your hand is your ring and little fingers. Any patterns starting with these fingers are “weak side” patterns.
Pretty simple, right? Your index and middle fingers are usually stronger and easier to control. And your ring and little fingers have a little less independence. And they’re weaker in general.
Single octave patterns give you a lot of flexibility in your playing. They’re simple, and clear. And they’re easy to string together to connect up or down the neck.
Minor Pentatonic One-Octave Shapes
We’ll start with the one-octave shapes for the minor pentatonic. There are 4 strong side shapes, and 3 weak side shapes available to you.
Strong Side Shapes (starting on the index finger):
Weak Side Shapes (starting on the ring or pinkie finger):
Major Pentatonic One-Octave Shapes
Now let’s look at the one-octave shapes for the major pentatonic scale:
Strong Side Shapes (starting on the middle finger):
Weak Side Shapes (starting on the ring or pinkie finger):
You can play a lot of music using just these one octave pentatonic scales on your guitar. Some players build out their entire system of playing based on one octave shapes.
I know I did. For years, this is how I navigated the neck during music school. It’s a pretty straightforward way to start internalizing musical concepts. And figuring out how they work on your guitar.
It’s worth a look to see if it’s the best option for you.
Connecting Pentatonic Scale Shapes on the Guitar
The one octave pentatonic scales can be connected across your guitar fretboard. This is a flexible way to move up and down the neck – using easy to remember patterns.
Here are the common connections you might find useful:
Minor Pentatonic Connections
Major Pentatonic Connections
These are the main ways you can connect these patterns on the fretboard. When you can move around the neck using these, it can really give you a sense of freedom.
Connecting scales also gives you a way to create larger, 2 octave patterns as needed.
The Five Pentatonic Patterns
Some players really like the one octave pattern approach. And I get it.
Like I said, I used to use this method too. It was really helpful for me, and I still use it sometimes.
But it’s also a lot of little things to work on. One of the things I found as I learned more techniques – your to-do list gets pretty big. And the longer your to-do list, the more likely you are to get overwhelmed.
For me, sometimes I just want something simple that covers all the bases. I really like a “less is more” approach to my scales.
And that’s where the 5 shapes come in.
These 5 pentatonic scales give you everything you need to improve your guitar playing. When you really look at it – these 5 patterns contain all of your strong and weak side scale shapes from the one octave approach above.
And you can easily see how they’re built around the single octave shapes in the diagrams below. I’ve highlighted or “filled in” the dots that match with your one octave shapes.
These are the patterns I use to keep myself organized on the fretboard, while keeping my practice time “to do list” short.
5 Minor Pentatonic Scales for Guitar
5 Major Pentatonic Scales for Guitar
Conclusion
It’s important to make a point of knowing all of your pentatonic scales – not just a shape or two. By limiting yourself to what you already know, you’re cutting yourself off from a great source of skill and vocabulary.
It doesn’t matter whether you use the one octave patterns, or the 5 shapes. It just matters that you learn them all. It’s really not that much.
Think about this – every other instrument has to learn all of their scales 12 times. Once for each key. We just have to learn our scales 5 times (or 7 if you use the one octave approach).
Either way, it’s a pretty good deal for us guitar players.
Each scale shape unlocks slightly different vocabulary on your fretboard. Because of how the patterns line up with the strings – some phrases will be easier for you to play in one shape over another.
And think of it this way – each scale shape you learn is one more scale than most guitar players out there know. It levels you up just a little bit.
And the more tools you have available to you, the better your playing can be.
So take some time to explore your pentatonic scales with your guitar. Take the time you need to experiment, and see what approach works best for you.
And then practice it!
Get the Cheat Sheet
Need a resource for practicing your pentatonic scales? Get the cheat sheet here for just $5.
- 5 Minor pentatonic scale diagrams
- 5 Major pentatonic scale diagrams
- Fretboard map with every note on the neck – so you can play in any key