Blues Lead Guitar: Minor Penatonic Pos 2 #6of20 (Guitar Lesson BL-016) How to play

Justin's Completely Free, Blues Lead Guitar Lesson BL-016 Lesson 6.

PART 6 of series. This lesson covers the second position of the Minor Pentatonic and the various common fingerings.

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/BL-016-MinPentPos2.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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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.