The Minor Pentatonic is commonly the first scale people learn, and with good reason, it's easy and super useful, especially for The Blues!
View the full lesson at Minor Pentatonic Pattern 1 | JustinGuitar
This might be a really daft question……playing this on the 5th fret is the ‘A minor pentatonic scale’ isn’t it? So if I play the exact scale on the 3rd fret is this the ‘G minor pentatonic scale’?
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Hi Craig ,
You are right 
…That’s nice, isn’t it, you can now apply this in 12 places/notes
Greetings
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Is there a particular reason why Justin decided to go to the minor pentatonic scale after having taught position 3 of the major scale? Feels like the major scale didn’t get finished. We come back to the major scale position 4 in the next grade. Thanks.
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Man… starting on that root note and keeping it in mind… absolutely brilliant! I’ve toyed about with learning these patterns for years, always give up maybe three patterns in, not feeling any connection- just this simple thing brings it all together. Thanks Justin!
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23 posts were split to a new topic: Minor pentatonic pattern 1 - Rob Swift calls it box 4 … CAGED shapes / names
I have been practicing the A minor pentatonic scale up and down using the 4th finger on the 8th fret notes ,and I am now able to do this with my metronome set to 155 bpm, 4 times without mistakes as Justin suggests. However, I am finding that I do not have the stretch in my fingers to enable me to reach the 8th fret on the thinnest two strings with my 3rd finger without my first finger needing to go to the 6th fret. I note that Justin’s first finger stays at the 5th fret when he is playing these notes with his third finger in the video lesson. I have been playing for a few years now so I am not a complete beginner, but I am an older player and have found this lack of ‘stretch’ has been an issue in my playing.
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@laser_171825
Keep working at making that stretch possible for you.
In the minor pentatonic, you are going to need your ring finger on 8th fret of E and B strings to make bends with. In those moments, your index finger will lift and join together with ring and middle fingers, to form a cluster, used to help reinforce the strength of your grip in bending the string. The ability to stretch is still useful as it means you can, for example, play 5th fret E string then go to bend 8th fret B string and allow the first of those notes to ring as long as possible before the bend arrives.
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Hi Malcolm, this exercise helped me with this challenge. My pinkie would also like to curl inwards and didn’t want to lie flat.
Do be careful with this, it’s quite stretchy, so definitely start on the dusty end, not fret 5-8
https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/finger-stretching-exercise-te-101
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On the lower (thinner) strings try angling your fingers 30-45 degrees towards the bridge. This give you a greater degree of stretch across 4 frets.
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Thanks for the suggestions. This lack of stretch in my fingers has been an issue for a while, not just in attempting this exercise. Getting my fingers to cover multiple frets when playing, say, a blues shuffle, Chuck Berry style, is also a struggle (yes, I know you can play that the easy way by barring the second fret, but it would be nice to be able to do it the ‘correct’ way). Anyway, I digress. I shall keep practicing the A minor pentatonic scale and I shall now always try to use the 3rd finger on the thinnest strings at the 8th fret. I will have to slow it right down again, and @Beatup6String , thanks for the link, I will check out the exercise.
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I have trouble with a four-fret stretch closer to the headstock too. I’m convinced that, at my age, stetching exercises were never going to get me there. Eventually I raised the white flag and bought a guitar with a shorter scale length. It immediately allowed me to span 4 frets, which allowed me to play pieces that were previously off limits.
I bought a Taylor GS Mini (acoustic). In electrics, the Fender Jaguar and Mustang, I believe, have short scale necks.
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