Are you struggling to memorize scales on the guitar fretboard? This lesson will help you to easily play riffs anywhere on the fretboard.
By the end of this lesson should be able to play guitar solos all over the fretboard in pentatonic, natural and blues major and minor scales.
The pentatonic scale is one of the most beginner-friendly scales because it contains only five notes (penta meaning “five”), making it easier to remember across the fretboard. As long as you stay in the correct key, it works well over virtually any chord progression. Different pentatonic “boxes” can be found depending on the root note’s position, but the pattern shown below is the simplest and the best place to start.
This diagram shows the minor pentatonic scale. When the root note (marked in red) on the 6th string is placed at the 5th fret, the scale becomes A minor pentatonic. Since A minor and its relative major, C major, share the same notes, the same scale box can also be used for the C major pentatonic—just shift the focus to the root note C. See the figure below for reference.
You can transpose the scales by moving the scale box left or right on the fretboard.
As mentioned earlier, the pentatonic scale contains only five notes. For example, the A minor pentatonic consists of A, C, D, E, and G.
Similarly, the C major pentatonic is made up of C, D, E, G, and A.
You may notice that the notes F and B are missing in both scales. By adding these two notes back into the pentatonic pattern, you get the complete natural A minor and natural C major scales. See the figures below for illustration.
So, if you memorize the pentatonic scale box all over the fretboard, you can easily play the natural minor and major scales by simply incorporating the two missing notes of the scale in question.
You can convert A minor and C major pentatonic scales shown above to A minor and C major blues scale by adding just one note.
For instance, if you add the Eb note to the A minor pentatonic and C major pentatonic scales, you get the A minor and C major blues scales respectively.
Notes in A minor blues scale: A, C, D, Eb, E, G
Notes in C major blues scale: C, D, Eb, E, G, A
So you see, it is so easy to convert the minor and major pentatonic scale boxes to natural and blues scale boxes. Move the scale boxes around (taking note of the root notes) and you can play riffs and solos all over the fretboard like a pro. Isn’t that great?