Blues Lead Guitar: Position 4 Scales #13of20 (Guitar Lesson BL-023) How to play

Justin's Completely Free, Blues Lead Guitar Lesson BL-023. Lesson 13.

In this guitar lesson you will learn the minor pentatonic scales and blue notes in position 4.

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/BL-023-MinPentBluesPos4.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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Have fun :)

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Hi, welcome back again.

Justin here of course,
and this Lesson is BL-023,

In which we're going to be talking about
the Minor Pentatonic Scale

and the Blues Scale in position 4.

Now of course we're doing all of these in A

so we're going to be starting with our 1st finger
right up in the 12th fret.

Again, there's quite a few different
fingering options for this scale,

so I'm going to go through those with you now,

starting off of course with the Minor Pentatonic Scale.

Let's go to a close up and get started.

OK for Position 4, we're starting here,
with the 1st finger in the 12th fret of the 5th string.

Which is our Root note, the note A.
and for this one we're going 1st finger, 4th finger

. . .

Then 1st, 3rd

. . .

1st finger, 3rd finger again.

, , ,

Now for practice you can use this 2nd and 4th,

but I'm going to show you a couple
of variations of this in a sec.

. . .

And then 1 and 4.

. . .

Back down the scale.

. . .

Now we're going to use the 4th and 1st finger
on this low note, on these low strings as well.

. . .

Force coming back and starting and finishing
on that low Root note.

So I'll play that scale all the way up and down now
for you once, nice and slow.

. . .

Now the obvious fingering issue here is
when we get up to the 2nd string.

So the first part's pretty standard.

. . .

Now when we get to these notes here, now,

the reason for the change of fingering is because

you'll notice we've got that 4th finger on

both of those notes here on the 15th fret,
and they're both really good notes to bend,

and we don't like bending with the little finger,
so one of the most common solutions here

is to use fingers 1 and 3 on the G string,

, , ,

and then use fingers 1 and 3 again on the 2nd string.

But of course your 1st finger had to
move up a fret from its regular position,

. . .

and then we use 1 and 3 again on the thinnest string.

. . .

Now, I use that fingering for this scale quite a lot.

. . .

And if we go straight into talking about
which notes you'd bend now for this one.

So starting off on the Root note,
you're probably not going to bend that one.

The note here with your little finger here on the 15th fret

that one is a good one to curl if you want.

. . .

Quite a nice one to put a little curl on.

You can do a tone bend, but doing a tone bend
with your little finger there

is a little bit awkward, so I don't generally advise that.

Then we've got 1 and 3,
now if you're going to bend that one

you'd need to bend it a tone to stay within the scale.

Sorry, a tone and a half.

To stay with the scale there, so that'd be quite a big bend,
not very common.

. . .

Unless you're Dave Gilmour, you're probably
not going to be doing that one a whole lot.

So, possible, but not very likely.

1st finger, we're not going to be touching that one much,

3rd finger, again, if you want to bend that one,
you have to bend it another minor 3rd

or 3 semitones, a tone and a half.
All the same thing.

. . .

That's a really, another quite a big bend. Not very common.

So you generally wouldn't be doing that one.

Now when it comes to next one,
we're going to use 1 and 3 fingering.

This 1st finger, this note here that I'm playing
with the 1st finger is a great one to curl.

It's the note C, now you can bend
curl that with either the 1st finger,

. . .

or you could, if you're using that first fingering that we had

you can curl it with the 2nd finger.

. . .

It's a really nice little trick.

. . .

A really good one to bend, that one, to curl rather.

So, you could do those curls of course with the 1st finger,

. . .

and that sets you up nicely for this note here,
the note D,

which you're going to use your 3rd finger,
which takes a tone bend.

. . .

Really good one to bend, that one as well,
now you can also bend that one a semitone,

and get to your blue note.

. . .

nice little.

. . .

go a semitone, then a tone.

. . .

It's also a nice one, so this ones a really,
really good one to bend.

You can bend it a semitone to the blue note,
or a tone to stay within the scale notes.

Get on to the thinnest string now,
we've got the 1st finger at the 12th fret,

which we're almost certainly not going to bend,
that one's going to be a pretty horrible one

if you try and bend that one,
and we've got then the 3rd finger

which takes a really nice tone bend to the Root note.

. . .

So that's a really, that's another classic one to bend
if you're in that position.

. . .

Really lots of good bending opportunities in this scale.

OK next thing we're going to look at is
where the Blue Notes are found,

around this Position IV of the Minor Pentatonic Scale.

There's some really, really good useful little positions
for this blue note with this.

Again you can practice trying to play a Blues Scale
up and down if you wish.

But much easier just to learn where the notes are,
and how a few different tricks,

to find them, little slides and stuff that you can use
to accent this very, very cool little note.

So let's go to a close up, and I'll go through with you,
where those Blue Notes are,

and how to use them.

OK here we are looking for the Blue Notes
now in Position IV.

So, the first one that we come across here,

is going to be the 2nd finger here
on the 13th fret of the D string.

. . .

Really, really nice one there.

Nice and good access with a little hammer-on
and flick-off with the 1st and 2nd fingers.

. . .

Really easy to access that one.

OK continuing up the scale,

. . .

we've got one here after the little finger here,
which is the 16th fret of the 2nd string.

So when you're playing the scale,

. . .

Now I was using there just 2nd and 4th fingers
which was a little awkward,

of course if you're using 1st and 3rd finger
for that part of the scale

. . .

You can either bend from that note D, or slide up to it,

. . .

Really, really quite easy to access,
nice sounding little position there.

Now that same note is also found at the 11th fret
of the thinnest string,

which is also really nice to access

. . .

just using a 1st finger slide.

. . .

Or sliding back down to it and back up,

. . .

Lots of really crazy little ways
of kind of introducing that note.

. . .

Now, of course, the same note is found down here
at the 11th fret of the thickest string,

but to be honest that ones a pretty hard one to use
in that position,

it's probably not going to get down that far, but at least

we know it's there, but it's not really one
that you're going to use a whole heap.

OK I hope you've enjoyed checking
out those licks in Position IV.

Remember really important to make sure you're using them,

with the backing track, blend them in
with all of your other licks,

so you've got some good stuff to use when you start getting further up the neck.

Really, really important. Also just as a little note
in case I haven't mentioned it,

make sure that you memorise where the root note is,

so that when we start to move these licks
into other keys that you don't suddenly

have a big panic, and you don't know
where all the notes are in relation to the root note.

Root note, root note, really important,
know where the root note is.

Should be a little rhyme, or something,
or maybe a tattoo on your forehead, that kind of thing.

OK. Have fun with those, and I'll see you
for the next lesson very shortly,

which is going to be showing you some licks
on actually how to use those things.