A minor pentatonic scale on guitar
The five-note scale most blues and rock solos are built from: where box 1 sits, where the roots are, and which note to bend.
- Notes
- A · C · D · E · G
- Formula
- 1 · ♭3 · 4 · 5 · ♭7
- Notes in the scale
- 5
Minor pentatonic is the first scale most lead players learn and the one most of them keep using forever. It drops the 2nd and the 6th out of the natural minor scale, and those are exactly the two notes most likely to clash over a blues progression. What is left is forgiving: you can land almost anywhere and it will sound intentional, which is what makes it the right place to learn phrasing rather than fighting note choice.
Box 1 in A sits at the 5th fret with the root under your first finger on the low E string. Two notes per string across all six strings, and the root turns up three times in the shape: low E 5th fret, D string 7th fret, high e 5th fret. Knowing where those three roots are is the difference between playing a shape and playing in a key — they are the notes that resolve, so they are where phrases want to end.
The note to lean on is the ♭3, C in this key. Push it a half step toward the major 3rd and you get the sound people actually mean when they say blues. Sitting on the ♭3 straight sounds minor; pushing it toward the 3rd sounds like a voice.
Where it sits on the neck
Box 1 is one of five positions, and the other four are the same five notes seen from a different root. Each window below starts where an A falls and runs four frets up, so the question is never which box number this was, it is where the nearest root is. That framing survives a key change; a fret number does not.
Two of the five carry most blues playing: the low E position at the 5th fret, which is box 1, and the B string position at the 10th, which is the neighbourhood the BB box occupies. The one at the nut is worth learning early because open strings ring on while your hand moves.
- Root on the A string — the open strings to the 3rd fret.
- Root on the G string — the 2nd fret to the 5th.
- Root on the low E string — the 5th fret to the 8th.
- Root on the D string — the 7th fret to the 10th.
- Root on the B string — the 10th fret to the 13th.
What to play it over
The five notes are A, C, D, E and G, and over a 12-bar blues in A they cover all three chords without your hand moving. The A7 gives you three as chord tones — A, E and G. The D7 gives you three — D, A and C. The E7 gives you two, the E and the D. No bar of the form leaves you stranded, which is why one position gets a beginner through a whole chorus.
The rock side works the same way: over the Am, G and F vamp the scale holds three notes of the Am and two of each of the others. The same five pitches are also C major pentatonic read from a different home note, so a country player in C and a blues player in A have one shape between them.
What it will not do is follow the changes. It fits all three chords because it commits to none of them, so nobody can hear the form move from your playing alone. That is what target tones and Mixolydian are for.
The common mistake
Starting every phrase at the bottom of the shape. The low E root at the 5th fret is where the diagram begins, so it becomes where the hand begins, and a whole chorus of phrases opens on the same note and climbs. Enter it somewhere else on purpose: the D string root at the 7th has notes above and below it, and the high e root at the 5th lets you come down into a phrase rather than up out of one. A shape you can only get into from one corner is a pattern, not a scale.