Learning the pentatonic scale: 4 essential patterns to practice on the guitar

Whether you’re a beginner guitarist looking to build a solid foundation or an experienced player aiming to expand your repertoire, pentatonic scales are an essential tool in your musical toolbox. This article will guide you through everything you need to know when exploring scale patterns. We’ll explore four pentatonic scale patterns that will enhance your playing, boost your improvisational skills, and unlock new creative possibilities. So grab your guitar, and let’s dive into the pentatonic scale!

What is a pentatonic scale?

A pentatonic scale consists of only five notes per octave (“penta” meaning five, like a pentagon). Pentatonic scales are favored for their simplicity, versatility, and ease of memorization, making them suitable for most musical genres.

The pentatonic scale doesn’t have any half-steps or semitones (notes that are directly next to each other on the guitar neck), which makes it suitable for beginner guitarists learning to play scales. This characteristic also contributes to the scale’s popularity in pop and rock music, where musicians often want to create music with minimal formal training.

Major scale vs minor scale

In this article, we’ll look at the two main types of pentatonic scales: major and minor scales. We’ll also demonstrate two playing positions for each scale — one with the lowest note (aka “root note”) on the 6th string, and one with the root note on the 5th string. With these four scales, you’ll be able to cover songs in all keys over the guitar fretboard.

But let’s start with major and minor scales. If those terms don’t ring a bell, don’t worry – here are the main differences:

• Major scales usually sound happy, bright, and uplifting.
• Minor scales tend to have darker and more serious tones.

If you want to dig deeper, the differences between major and minor scales also come down to their specific patterns of half and whole steps. Read more about major and minor chords to bring your guitar skills to the next level!

Minor pentatonic scale pattern

We’ll start with the minor pentatonic scale, since it’s the most popular among guitarists. The scale’s structure allows even beginner guitarists to create expressive and memorable guitar solos with ease.

Here’s the first minor pentatonic scale to learn:

G minor pentatonic scale, root-6 position.

In case you’ve never seen this diagram before, let’s discuss how it works.

The diagram shows you a bird’s eye view of the fretboard, with the 6th string (big E) at the bottom of the diagram, and the 1st string (little E) up top. The idea is to play each dot in order, starting on the 6th string and working your way up, from left to right.

So, what do all the colors mean? The red note is the ‘root’—it’s the starting note and the one that gives the pentatonic scale its name. In this case, it’s a G note, which is why it’s called the “G” minor pentatonic scale. However, the shape itself is completely movable: if we started on a different note, like A on fret 5, we’d be playing the A minor pentatonic scale.

What about the black notes? These are called ‘chord tones’, and together they make a G minor chord. If you already know your root-6 minor barre chord, you might recognize the shape. If not, we recommend learning more about barre chords.

In a tab, the G minor pentatonic scale would look like this:

G minor pentatonic scale (root-6 position), in tab.

Both of these pictures are helpful to understand for a couple of reasons. First, you’ll see that the minor pentatonic scale is the minor barre chord with just a few notes added, which makes it faster to learn. Second, as you play through the scale or start to improvise, you’ll find these chord tones sound nice and stable – if you’re soloing, these are the strong notes to rest on. You get the full minor pentatonic scale when adding in those blue notes.

Let’s say you’re jamming and your friend says, “Let’s play in G minor”. Your job is to improvise using the minor pentatonic scale in that key. You find the root note G on the 6th string fret 3 and start playing the root-6 minor pentatonic shape. In this scenario, you already know the notes on the 6th string well, and if your friend were jamming in Am or Em, you’d also be able to find those notes. You’d spend extra time on the chord tones since those are the most stable-sounding notes. Sounds awesome, right?

But what if we want to move around the fretboard a bit and break out of that one scale shape? That’s where the root-5 shape comes in:

G minor pentatonic scale, root-5 position.

Notice that the root note in red is on the 5th string—in this case on fret 10, since that’s the note G. If we played the shape starting on fret 7 of the 5th string (which is E), we’d be playing the E minor pentatonic scale (root-5 shape). As before, the black notes show you the chord tones, which you may already recognize if you know your root-5 minor barre chord. The blue notes make up the rest of the scale shape. Many people struggle with the B-string due to its shape, so be sure to pay extra attention to that area.

So, back to our jam in G minor — we’re rocking out with the root-6 position down on fret 3. To amp things up, we move up to the root-5 position on fret 10. This sounds extra awesome, and of course, it’s lots of fun moving around the fretboard and using the pentatonic scale patterns you’ve spent time learning.

To make the most of your minor pentatonic shapes, you need to know your root notes on the 6th string and 5th string so you know where to play the shapes. We recommend learning the notes on those strings well, especially for common keys you’ll come across, like A, C, D, E, and G.

Major pentatonic scale pattern

Now we’ve covered the minor pentatonic scale, which is great for all those dark-sounding minor keys. But what if your friend starts jamming on a major scale, such as G major? That’s what the major pentatonic scale is for. Let’s have a look at the root-6 shape:

G major pentatonic scale, root-6 position.

As before, we’ve got the root note on the 6th string, in this case, fret 3 (G). The black notes show you the chord tones, which you may recognize as the root-6 major barre chord shape (if you only know one barre chord, it’s probably this one). The blue notes fill in the rest of the major pentatonic shape. As before, if you start on a different root note like A on fret 5, you’ll play the major pentatonic scale in that key.

Similar to the minor pentatonic scale, the major scale has two notes per string. You’ll notice that the major pentatonic scale works best starting with the middle finger. It also has a brighter tone, yet it’s versatile enough to sound like anything from a major blues scale to Japanese or Celtic music, depending on how it’s played.

Now your friend says, “Let’s jam in G major”, and you start cranking out beautiful melodies using the G major pentatonic scale, root-6 position. Then, you get inspired to jump to the root-5 position, like this:

G major pentatonic scale, root-5 position.

As before, we’ve got the root note in red (G on the 5th string, fret 10), and the stable-sounding chord tones in black, forming the root-5 major barre chord shape. The blue notes fill out the rest of the scale.

Now you can jump around the fretboard with two pentatonic shapes for major and minor songs. And, because you’ve been dutifully learning your root notes on the 6th and 5th strings, you can do it in any key.

Switching between major and minor pentatonic scales

In some styles, like blues, you can shift between the major and minor pentatonic scales, resulting in sounds that blur the line between dark and bright. A great example of switching between major and minor pentatonic scales can be heard on the iconic solo for AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”, and many solos from masters like Eric Clapton and B.B. King.

You can practice switching between major and minor scales by playing a few notes in the G minor pentatonic scale and then moving to the G major pentatonic scale. Try experimenting like this with different pentatonic scale patterns or switch between a major and minor pentatonic scale in the same key.

Once you feel comfortable switching between the major and minor G pentatonic scales, you can explore other scales, such as the C major pentatonic scale. Soon you might notice that you’ve come up with something that sounds great and impresses others at those jam sessions we talked about earlier.

Learn to play the pentatonic scale with Yousician

You know those times a guitar player plays a note and they just make that guitar face while they hold the note? Yep. That’s the feeling of landing on a satisfying note, and knowing what you’re doing. By downloading Yousician on your computer and Android or iOS mobile device, you can experience that feeling too.

There’s a great guitar scale trainer in the Yousician app that you can use during your musical journey. Think of your practice time like Daniel San’s “Wax On, Wax Off” exercise: muscle memory will free you to focus on the sound of what you’re playing and how it relates to what’s happening in the background. This in turn will lead to better notes when soloing. That’s exactly what you’re looking for when becoming a great guitarist.