Minor Pentatonic Scales - Busting Out Of Those Dreaded Box Patterns

A very common frustration that many guitar players have is the feeling of being "boxed in" when playing guitar scales. They have memorized quite a few scale patterns, but feel trapped when soloing. They can solo in each scale pattern but have trouble moving fluidly between the patterns.

Perhaps you can relate to this?

I know I can...

When I first started playing lead guitar this lack of ability to move between the different scale patterns was a major source of frustration for me!

So what's the answer?

Well, there are lots of things that help solve that problem. For this guitar lesson, we'll take a look at one of them.

Minor Pentatonic Scale: 2-3 Fingerings

OK, let's take a scale that I'm pretty sure that you've come across. It's the infamous A Minor Pentatonic Scale...

This is a scale pattern fingering that virtually every lead guitarst learns at some stage. It's also one of those dreaded box patterns that a LOT of guitar players get stuck in for years. So let's bust out of this box...

Check out the diagram below. Notice that I've mapped out the notes of A Minor Pentatonic from the 5th fret up to the 17th fret...

A Minor Pentatonic: Notes Mapped On A Fretboard Diagram

Mapping the notes of a scale over a large portion of the fretboard is a great thing to do. It allows you to clearly see the "big picture" of the scale. And this allows you to come up with some very cool ways of playing the scale...

What we are going to do now is create a scale fingering for the A Minor Pentatonic scale that moves diagonally across the fretboard. Please check out the fretboard diagram below...

A Minor Pentatonic: 2-3 Scale Fingering

Take a few moments to look at this diagram. What do you notice about it?

Now, here's a question for you. Why have I called it a 2-3 Scale Fingering? Take a close look at the diagram again and see if you can work it out.

All done? Great...

As you probably guessed, it is called a 2-3 Scale Fingering because it uses 2 notes on one string and then 3 notes on the next string. (It continues this pattern for each pair of strings).

Putting This Into Practice

Let's now take a look at a minor pentatonic exercise that goes through the entire scale fingering. It's a great workout for both your fretting hand and picking hand...

A Minor Pentatonic: Exercise

Play this exercise using alternate picking starting with a downstroke. Be sure to pay careful attention to the left hand fingerings that I've recommend. (These are the numbers shown underneath the TAB).

That's all for now. I hope you enjoyed this lesson. I recommend working hard at this lesson, because it will help prepare you for future lessons. So so grab your guitar and metronome now and get to work. :-)

All the best,

Craig Bassett