When learning the scale, should I be learning just the positions or is it essential I learn all the notes as well?
ie I now know shapes/positions 1 and 2 of the A Minor pentatonic, but not the actual named notes.
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I would say, at the start, it is essential to at least learn where the root notes are. Moving forward, you will want to learn the names of the all the notes (in key of Am: A, C, D, E and G), but also more importantly the corresponding intervals (same in all keys: Root, b3, 4, 5, b7).
But to start, knowing well the pattern and the root note positions can give you a lot to work with.
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makes a lot of sense cheers
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That’s pretty much howI did it but in hindsight with what I know now l’d do it differently.
I’d start by just using A minor pentatonic, just that key. Learn the 5 notes and the intervals as above, root b3 etc. Once you’ve got this down you can move to any other key and even if you don’t know the notes in each key which you may wish to do eventually you will know all the intervals. so if you want to play a b3 or any other note they are in exactly the same place within each pattern for every key
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