Blues Lead Guitar: Blues Pattern 3 Scales #11of20 (Guitar Lesson BL-021) How to play

Justin's Completely Free, Blues Lead Guitar Lesson BL-021. Lesson 11.

PART 11 in series of 20. In this guitar lesson you will learn the Minor Pentatonic Scale and blue notes in Pattern 3 to work into you blues lead guitar playing.

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/BL-021-MinPentBluesPos3.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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in this lesson we're going to be talking
about position 3 of the minor pentatonic scale

and of the Blues Scale.

Now, it's really really important
that you know first position 1and position 2

and you can use it

and you know some licks for that
to go within each of those different positions

before you try and do 3

much more important
to be able to actually play a solo

than to just know scales up and down.

So if you've got position 1
and position 2 down

you can play them up and down,

you know some licks
and you can use them to make up a solo,

then you are ready for this lesson
where we check out position 3.

So, we are going to go to a close-up now

and I'm going to show you
the different fingering options

that we've got for Position 3
of the Minor Pentatonic.

So here we are

for Position Three A minor Pentatonic.

Now, because this is an A minor Pentatonic,

we're starting with our third finger
on the note A

which is found on the 12th fret
of the 5th string.

That's going to be our starting note.

That's the root note,
that's where we get the name of the scale.

Really important that you start
and end there when you practice.

So we're starting with the third finger there

Then first finger - third finger

. . .

Then 1st finger drops back a fret to the 9th fret
and 3rd finger is staying on the 12th fret.

. . .

1st finger comes back up to the 10th fret.

. . .

Now, you can either use your 3rd finger,
or your little finger here.

Depends on, really it's a kind of random for me
which finger I use to be honest

So I'm gonna use my 4th finger
now just to show you.

So, 1st and 4th.

. . .

Then 1st and 3rd on the thinnest string.

. . .

and Back down.

. . .

To go back down the scale
now we are going to the 1st finger

. . .

then 3 and 1 on the thickest string.

. . .

And back up.

. . .

So now I'm gonna play the scale nice and slow
all the way up and down.

. . .

Now I just wanna show you

some of the really common variations
and misconceptions with this scale.

Now, some people try and start it
here with their little finger

. . .

and the problem with doing this way,
using the 2nd and 4th finger

is that they're the weakest fingers.

And there's no way that you would actually ever

. . .

like that you would use these

. . .

Almost certainly use fingers 1 and 3 here

Now,

. . .

if you want to,
you can use your 4th finger on that

. . .

All the way up.
Or you can use 1 and 3 for the whole scale

. . .

In which case you are gonna use
the 2nd finger on the top.

. . .

Doesn't really matter

It's up to you
to make those fingering choices.

Of course you have to be very careful
what notes you bend

within a Minor Pentatonic Scale.

You can't just bend
whichever notes you like.

So I want to take you through

and show you which notes
are good ones to bend

and which ones are good ones to curl.

Now, the thickest string
I'm not going to worry about

because neither of those
are particularly good for bending or curling.

Same as the 5th string really

That one and the this here the note G,
and the root note A.

Neither of those are great
for bending either.

The next note that we have in the scale
is this note C

here at the 10th fret of the 4th string.

Now, this is quite a good one to put a curl on.

. . .

It's not a proper bend,

you just do that little bend there
with the 1st finger.

. . .

Now, the next note here is D.

You could bend,
but it's quite a big

. . .

If you are going to bend that one,

because it's the 4th string,
you can pull it down

as opposed to pushing it up.

And that would be a tone bend.

So bending it to the note E,
the note

. . .

It's quite a big bend,

pretty uncommon.

The other note that you can bend, this one too
if you want, is the blue note

which we are going to talk about in a sec

. . .

which is this note here.

. . .

Which is just bending that note D

to a D# which is the blue note

As I said, we are going to talk about that in a sec.

. . .

If we continue up the scale now

. . .

This note is not really going to be able to do
a Minor third bend from there

so that ones not going to get a bend.

Here we are on the note G.

Now this one if you want
you can do this as a tone bend

which will be a bend to the note A.

. . .

Bending up to the root note

quite a nice trick.

Continuing up the scale

. . .

We got the note A, we're not going to be bending that
with the first finger

Now here we've got the note C

which is at 13th fret 2nd string.

Now this note is a good one too.
You can either bend this one

No, this one's going to be a curl,
or it's going to be a tone, so you can

. . .

Just adding a little curl
to that note C

. . .

very nice one to put a curl on

And that one could also take a tone bend

. . .

So that one is a very nice one to bend.

Now, we've got here on the top part

. . .

the note D.

Again, I'm not really gonna do a bend
with that note to be honest.

You could bend it to this D# here
with the blue note

. . .

Pretty unusual to do so,
but it's possible.

And the last note here - E.

You could bend that one
but that's gonna be a Minor Third bend.

So bending the note E to G.

. . .

which is a really really big bend.

and one which is definitely going to take
a bit of skin off your fingers.

So now we are going to talk
a little bit about the Blues Scale.

So, the Blues Scale is the same
as the Minor Pentatonic

but adding a flat five degree to the scale.

Now, you can learn to play a Blues Scale
straight up and down,

but a lot more useful is just to know

where the note is
in relation to the Minor Pentatonic Scale

and then practice using it
as part of your licks,

or jumping up to it
and coming back from it.

So, what I want to do now

Either have a look at your PDF sheet
if you bought the DVD,

or have a look on the web-page for this lesson.

and have a look at the little diagram

It'll have Blues Scale P3,
P3 meaning 'position 3'.

And you'll see on that
there's little red Bs.

And those little red Bs are the blue note.

So, what we are going to talk about now
is just different ways of accessing those

rather than just trying to play the scales
straight up and down.

Although it shouldn't be particularly hard
to figure out if you really want to.

So here we go, starting off
the A-minor Pentatonic position 3.

The first instance of the blue note

. . .

Is here, up at the 13th fret of the D string
which is the 4th string.

Now, to access that note,
you can either use your little finger

. . .

and continue the scale as normal.

But a really good idea
is just to use your 3rd finger

to slide up onto it
and you can slide up and back.

. . .

It's a really nice way of utilizing that note.

Now, the same degree is also found
one fret below the 9th fret note

. . .

which you can do
a nice little first finger slide back

. . .

Nice little trick there
to have that first finger sliding back.

Now, the same note again

. . .

Is here 2nd finger

which is going on the 11th fret
of the thinnest string

. . .

It fits perfectly under that finger there,

so that's a really nice way of using that one.

Now, it's also found down here
at the 11th fret of the thickest string

it's a little bit harder to use that one really,

you don't tend to use that one much

cause you are not playing on the thickest string
in that position so often.

Of course you can, but

. . .

you could use a little lick
like that if you want.

. . .

Well, I hope you've enjoyed our little look

at the position 3 of the Minor Pentatonic
and the Blues Scale.

Remember,
you just have to experiment a little bit

with the use of that blue note.

Of course, you can play the scale
up and down if you want,

but that's not the way that we use it.

We use it by playing licks,

and that's what the next lesson is about.

So, please check out the next lesson now

which is licks for Position 3.