Minor Pentatonic Scales - Extended Forms

MINOR PENTATONI PENTATONI C SCA LES  Extended Forms - For Standard and Dropped Tuning  Tuning 

Gary Noonkester Noonkester 4/19/11

Guitar Scale Studies - Vol. 1

T ABLE OF C ONTEN TS  Minor Pentatonic Scales

 3

 My Problem

 3

 My Nefarious Nefarious Plan

 4

The Method 

 5

The Method  continued  -

 All info contained herein copyright 2011 - by Gary Noonkester.

Guitar Scale Studies - Vol. 1

6 

MINOR PENTATONI PENTATONI C SCA LES  Extended Forms - For Standard and Dropped Tuning  Tuning  Gary Noonkester Noonkester 4/19/11

My Problem Proble m I’ve been playing guitar since 1989, but up until a year ago I had never approached learning  the instrument with a serious attitude, and even less so with a systematic method. My normal approach consisted of learning individual songs and very little focus was devoted to learning the instrument itself . In the 80‘s I had relied on using Guitar Tab books from a  number of sources to begin learning these songs, but I found that the tabs almost never agreed with what my ear was telling me (  not that my ear was correct  ), so I quit using them. In the early 90’s, I had taken guitar lessons from an a n instructor for about a month - learning a  few chord and scale forms, but quickly reverted to my habit of learning the guitar, song by  song.  This method of learning presented some advantages and disadvantages, like:  Advantages •

 A well-developed sense of relative pitch and rhythm

•

 A basic knowledge of moveable chord and scale forms

•

Can learn most songs by ear.

Disadvantages •

Disconnected knowledge of the guitar, with large gaps or ‘blank spots’.

•

I struggle with soloing in a fluid, and confident manner.

•

I could play p lay parts of songs accurately, accurately, but not in their entirety. entirety.

If you watch any of my cover co ver videos on YouT YouTube, ube, or listen to any of my original recordings,  you can hear the advantages and disadvantages clearly (  well, at least I can ).

Guitar Scale Studies - Vol. 1

My Nefarious Plan Fast-forward to today - April, 2011. I’ve decided to begin learning the guitar as an instrument- not just a collection of riff s, s, solos and songs that I like. like. I want to have the ability to to listen to a song or a solo and have a good idea of what is happening mechanically on the gui tar and  –  more importantly  –   –  have the ability to play pla y what I hear, or the ability to know what to practice in order to make it so.  To  To that end, I am starting with scale forms. My first choice choice is the Minor Pentatonic Scale because of it’s prevalent use in Rock music. One small problem though  - I tend to favor dropped tunings ( although although I can play in others ) and most guitar method or scale books neglect to teach scale patterns in a form that are designed for dropped tunings – nearly nearly all of them are written for standard tuning. While there is, I believe, a benefit to learning the standard tuning forms and then convert ing them to dropped, I think there is also a direct benefit to having a scale chart for both types of tuning. Herein is why I decided to map out the scale charts charts you will see on the following pages. One more minor problem too - Two-note-per-string ( 2NPS, 2NPS, hereafter ) scale patterns tend to be more difficult to play in a legato style and I also feel that they sound more ‘traditional’, or ‘cliched’. ‘cliched’. So, I have opted to develop and learn series of Three-note-per-string  ( 3NPS, 3NPS, hereafter ) extended patterns, which I believe will sound diff erent erent and be a bit easier to play ( hopefully, hopefully, time will bear this theory out ). If it works well, I’ll apply this to to major pentatonic, major, and minor scales, and so on.

Guitar Scale Studies - Vol. 1

 The Method  The method I used to derive these patterns is simple: 1. Combine two adjacent adjacent 2NPS pentato pentatonic nic boxes boxes to created created a new 3NPS box box in stan standard tuning. If you combine all of the pentatonic boxes this way, way, you end up with 5 extended boxes. a. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 1 + Box 2 = 3NPS 3NPS Box 1 b. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 2 + 3 = 3NPS Box 2 c. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 3 + 4 = 3NPS Box 3 d. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 4 + 5 = 3NPS Box 4 e. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 5 + 1 = 3NPS Box Box 5

Ex:

Guitar Scale Studies - Vol. 1

 The Method - continued  The method I used to derive the dropped tuning forms of these patterns is easier: 1. Replace Replace the the 6th string string pattern pattern of the 2NPS 2NPS and 3NPS 3NPS patterns patterns with with the pattern pattern from from the 4th string ( since since in dropped tunings, String 6 and 4 are the same.  Then, combine the boxes in the same manner we used for standard tuning. a. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 1 + Box 2 = 3NPS 3NPS Box 1 b. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 2 + 3 = 3NPS Box 2 c. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 3 + 4 = 3NPS Box 3 d. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 4 + 5 = 3NPS Box 4 e. 2NPS Boxes Boxes 5 + 1 = 3NPS Box Box 5

Ex:

On the pages pa ges that follow, follow, are the forms I came up with using the method outlined above. abov e. I hope you find them to be both accurate and useful. Enjoy!

- Gary Noonkester Noonkester

 April 19, 2011

Guitar Scale Studies - Vol. 1

Minor Pentatonic Extended Forms - Standard Tuning

= Root

Box 1

+

Box 2

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 1 ( Standard )

Box 2

+

Box 3

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 2 ( Standard )

Box 3

+

Box 4

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 3 ( Standard )

Box 4

+

Box 5

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 4 ( Standard )

Box 5

+

Box 5

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 5 ( Standard )

1 1 Guitar Scale ScaleStudies Studies- Vol. - Vol.

Minor Pentatonic Extended Forms - Dropped Tuning

= Root

Box 1

+

Box 2

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 1 ( Dropped )

Box 2

+

Box 3

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 2 ( Dropped )

Box 3

+

Box 4

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 3 ( Dropped )

Box 4

+

Box 5

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 4 ( Dropped )

Box 5

+

Box 1

= Minor Pentatonic Ext. Box 5 ( Dropped )

1 1 Guitar Scale ScaleStudies Studies- Vol. - Vol.