How are you doing? Justin here.
In this lesson today, this is lesson 6 of the Blues Lead Guitar series,
and in this lesson we're gonna be looking at position two of the minor pentatonic scale.
Now, please be sure that you've got your position one down
and you can use it, you can play licks
and you're ready for position two before you get going on this.
Much better to be able to play a solo using one position
than be able to go up and down lots of positions,
to not be able to actually use them.
So, this lesson we're gonna talk about position two,
the different fingering options you've got,
where the extra little cool notes are,
and just a few little tricks around this scale.
So, lets start by getting into a close-up
and make sure that you've got the actual scale, up and down, correctly.
So here we are for position two of our A minor pentatonic scale.
Now, we're gonna be starting this one here,
with our first finger on the7th fret of the fourth string.
And this is the lowest root note.
It's really important that you practice this scale
starting and finishing on the lowest root note
and not the lowest note of the scale.
This is because you will start to hear where the scale comes from.
And you'll hear the kind of the tonal center, if you like.
So, we're gonna start here, with the first finger;
then we've got the fourth finger on the tenth fret;
first finger, seventh fret of the third string;
third finger, ninth fret, third string.
Now, I'm gonna show you some other options for this later,
but for now we're gonna do the first finger, eighth fret, second string;
third finger, tenth fret, second string;
first finger, eighth fret, first string;
third finger on the tenth fret of the first string.
Straight back down that again:
. . .
Now we continue down the scale:
little finger, tenth fret;
first finger, seventh fret;
little finger, tenth fret;
second finger, eighth fret
and then back up.
. . .
Making sure that we're starting and finishing on the lowest root note.
So now I'm just gonna play that just up and down nice and slow.
. . .
Now, one of the most common fingering issues for this
is when we get on to the second string and the first string.
Now, some people think that it's better to use
the second and fourth fingers
on the notes on the 1st and 2nd strings up here.
Now, if you're playing in certain circumstances it is better
and if you're doing technical stuff it can be useful as well.
So it would be worth practicing sometimes
using this fingering as I'll show you now,
I'm just gonna show you the top part of it, if you like, of this scale now.
It's going here:
. . .
Here using second finger to fourth finger.
. . .
Now the advantage, of course, is that your hand doesn't have to shift any,
from here you don't have to go through this slide
kinda getting jammed up a little bit in that section.
. . .
Use second and fourth
. . .
So why would you not wanna use 2nd and 4th
when it appears easier?
Well, the reason is because very often you're gonna be bending on this note here
which is the tenth fret of the thinnest string.
. . .
This is a really, really common note to bend.
We know that bending with your little finger is really hard and not very productive,
so you generally wanna have your third finger on that spot.
. . .
It's a really, really common thing to be using those fingers.
. . .
So you can see that straight away you got nice vibrato here,
using your third finger as well.
So, occasionally (plays) you're doing little patterns
you might wanna use your second and fourth fingers there,
but generally you wanna be using your 1st and 3rd fingers there for this bit.
. . .
Now, one of the things it's really important when you're practicing your scales
or learning your scales is knowing what notes you can bend
and how far you shoud bend them, if you're going to.
Now, position two is a little bit funny,
because some of the notes in there are really ones
that you kinda have to be a bit careful with your bending on.
So if we look at the first two notes,
we're starting of course on the 4th string here,
. . .
That note that we come to with the little finger is the note C
and this is the minor third in the key of A
And this is the note that you might remember from our earlier lessons
that there you might put a curl on the note C.
Now, you can bend that note
but you only have to bend that a tone
because it's A on the fourth string which is a bit weird
at B, the fact that it's with your little finger
you might find that a little bit awkward to get a bend on.
So it's a quite uncommon note to bend,
but a very common note to curl, to get :
. . .
So you might end up doing curls with little finger
but a very unusual one to bend.
If we look at notes on next two strings,
we've got here the D and E with the first and third fingers (plays).
Now, the note here, the E, if you kind of do a bend on that,
you have to bend that a minor third
which means three frets higher.
So (plays) it's quite a big bend, quite an unusual bend as well,
so even though that note could have the bend
and it'd be a minor third, which is quite far,
you can bend at a tone later on, if you get into Dorian mode,
but it tends to be an unusual one to bend.
But if you're "Greek-confused" there,
"Oh no, Dorian mode, he's using his funny Greek stuff again!"
so the Dorian mode in the key of A
would simply mean that we're using the note F#
which is a very cool and funky to use in an A blues,
but not one that I wanna get into use just yet.
So, possible to bend but unlikely.
We get up to the second string (plays),
we've got the notes G and A, A of course being the root note.
Now, that note is a very, very dangerous one to bend,
cos if you don't bend that enough, you're gonna get into real horrible note
like the A# or B♭ which is possibly the worst note
that you could play in a blues.
So, if you gonna do a bend on this note,
on the note A with a third finger on the second string,
you have to make sure that you either bend it a tone
up to the note B, which gives you a ninth (plays),
but it's a little bit weird note to bend, to be honest,
bending to the ninth you have to be a bit careful with,
or you have to bend it the minor third up to the note C
. . .
which sounds cool, but it's quite a big bend.
So those of you that are just starting out on your blues guitar
I'd recommend again may be just not doing a bend with that note,
rather than risking bending a funny one.
So, possible but unlikely.
Next on the thinnest string,,
the last string that we gonna look a bending
because we're not really gonna talk about bending on the thickest two strings,
cos it's very, very rare.
We've got here the notes C and D (plays).
Now, if you remember, C is the note that it's very likely with put a curl on.
So, you gonna be to practice here doing a first finger curl
which should be the first finger on the eighth fret.
. . .
So just doing a little curl up there,
it's like a little quarter tone bend, if you like (plays).
Now, the other note on the thinnest string
is the note D, with a third finger on the tenth fret,
and that's a very good note to bend up a tone.
. . .
Now, I'm gonna go through and show you some licks in the next lesson,
but to start of with, we wanna be playing that scale
up and down, just straight up and down,
making sure you're using your alternate picking,
starting with the down pick of course
and being aware that there's these other fingering options,
that's really important, because lot of the licks you gonna use
fingers that are kinda the "wrong" fingers,
but remember when it comes to playing your actual solo
the fingering doesn't really matter so much, it's just the notes that matter.
And also being aware that (excuse me) that we've only got the
really that big bend there on the thinnest string with a third finger,
that's a good one to bend
and the other ones you have to treat with a little bit of caution,
you know, it's possible to bend them,
but I don't recommend you start learning to bend them,
because they might lead you to a bad place, bad notes.
So, next stage for you, make sure you got that scale down,
you know where it is, you know the different fingerings
and then I'll see you for the next lesson where we'll learn some licks
and actually learn how to use this scale to make up some solos.