Guitar Secrets - Sound Great On Cheap Guitar Equipment

Learning scales and modes on the guitar is always a big challenge. Changing keys on the guitar is not such a big brainer you can just move patterns you have learnt up and down the fretboard. But when it comes to playing free of patterns on the guitar fretboard the guitar shows it’s limitations because you hardly find any visual hook which you can connect to scales and modes you have learned. The solution for this problem is to work with intervals and to learn them by heart. The guitar is a pentatonic instrument and most of you learned the minor pentatonic as a first scale on the guitar. So the trick is to learn the intervals of the minor pentatonic and to move everything within the positions and the relations between the scales and positions. In this tutorial I'm showing you the root position of the minor and major pentatonic displayed as intervals and how you can add additional notes to create the main minor and major modes which are :

1:21 Minor Pentatonic 1 2 b3 4 5 b7

7:10 Aeolian 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7

9:02 Dorian 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7

10:40 Phyrgian 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7

 

12:55 Major Pentatonic 1 2 3 4 6

14:58 Ionian 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

15:57 Mixolydian 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7

16:32 Lydian 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7

 

In the list above I've displayed the scales I'm talking about with the time index and the intervals which are the defining them. If you're able to play the pentatonic in all positions on the guitar fretboard you can adapt those positions to any of those modes and scales by just adding the additional notes which I'm talking about in this tutorial. This method is a bit more of a brainer at the beginning but at the end once the coin has dropped you are able to play freely on the fretboard which is the goal of any guitar player on the planet. To complete your theoretical music education you find more documents about the topic. When you follow the link displayed here.

Easy Guitar Scales Understanding.gp

Easy Guitar Scales Understanding.pdf

Additional : 

https://www.hpcrazy.com/pdf/diatonic chord progressions and modes.pdf

https://www.hpcrazy.com/pdf/the pentatonics.pdf

HP, thank you so much for this tutorial.  I think until today I did not really understand how important it is to memorize not only the different positions of the minor/major pentatonics but also the intervals.  I mean, I knew I should do this, but somehow until today I did not understand why.

Hey Sara, yes the intervals are the main thing when it comes to scales and modes. I am glad you understood this now. ?

Hey HP,

I’ve been checking out your Horizontal Minor Pentatonic ( Basics ) lesson where you touch on intervals. I’ve seen where other instructors make the subject of intervals too complicated but you emphasize on learning them by heart and there is no way around that.  I know all five positions pretty well  but I am struggling to  memorize the scale on one string. I think by mastering the intervals this should enable me to play more freely all over the fretboard. 
 

Tony

Hey Tony,

thanks for joining our little community here. Yes I know the topic of intervals can be told complicated or easy. I prefer the easy way. It's how it is you just need to learn them by heart but the good news is once you know them and you recognize them on the fretboard everything starts to fall into place and makes fretboard geography much easier and gives you the ability to play freely on the fretboard. 

Hey HP,

My pleasure. From what I can tell so far we have a nice community here with some really cool folks. I'm not sure if anyone has brought to your attention that you stuck the 2nd in the minor pentatonic formula by mistake.

1:21 Minor Pentatonic 1 2 b3 4 5 b7

cheers

Hey Tony,

yes our little community is growing every day. ? I dont get what you mean with the 2nd minor pentatonic formula. 1 2 b3 4 5 b7 is the root position.

4 hours ago, admin said:

Hey Tony,

yes our little community is growing every day. ? I dont get what you mean with the 2nd minor pentatonic formula. 1 2 b3 4 5 b7 is the root position.

Hi HP,

It's quite possible that I am not understanding correctly what you are explaining in the lesson but I am referring to the formulas in the article where you show how to add the notes to the minor pentatonic scale to form the different modes of the minor scale:

1:21 Minor Pentatonic 1 2 b3 4 5 b7

7:10 Aeolian 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7

9:02 Dorian 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7

10:40 Phyrgian 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7

Shouldn't    1 2 b3 4 5 b7 

be                1 b3 4 5 b7 because there is no 2nd in the minor pentatonic scale? I apologize if I am mistaken here but this is just not making sense to me.

Regards 

Ah now I see the mistake - yes you are right there is no 2 in the minor pentatonic ?