Lauren Bateman teaches the minor pentatonic position five starting at the 3rd fret (pattern 3-5 on outer strings; 2-5 on middle strings) and introduces a "cross-section" trick: treat the 3-5 top-box, 5-7 middle-box, and 8-10 bottom-box as linked across positions 5, 1, and 2. She shows sliding connections (to frets 7, 9, 12), highlights overlapping pitches that allow double-stops (3,5,8,10), and encourages sliding sideways across the fretboard to expand improvisation beyond linear up/down scale practice.
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Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here in this lesson.
In this lesson, we're going to be going over position five of the pentatonic scale. But not only that, I'm going to show you a really cool cross section trick that will allow you to use more of your fretboard over three positions. So let's get into it.
So hopefully you've seen my other scale videos in this series and you're familiar with position one of a minor pentatonic and you're familiar with position two of a minor pentatonic. If not, I'll put links to the videos up there. You guys can go check those out. Because in this lesson we're going to get into the fifth position, which falls right before that first position. And once again, we are in a minor pentatonic. So I'm going to be starting on the third fret. But remember, these scales can be moved in positions depending. Depending on what key of a song you're playing with. So we're going to be starting with our first finger on the top string of the third fret. And we're going to be going 3, 5, 3, 5. All right? Then we're going to use our first finger and our pinky on the middle two. We're going to go 2, 5, 2, 5 and then 3, 5, 3, 5. So we're always ending on that fifth fret. So it's 3, 5, 3, 5 on the top two strings, 3, 5, 3, 5 On the bottom two strings. And the middle two are going to be 2, 5, 2, 5. So it sounds like this.
And that's why I like this position because it's kind of like a mirror on the top and the bottom. All right? So if we play it top to bottom, It'll sound like this 3, 5, 3, 5, 2, 5. 2, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5 backwards. Now we're going to do a turnaround, come Back to the third fret on that bottom string up a string. 5, 3, 5. 2, 5, 2, 5, 3, 5, 3.
Alright, so that is your fifth position. So you can learn that. But the most important part that we're going to talk about right now is that top box. And I'm going to show you how we're going to move that over three different positions. So starting in the top string, we have that 3, 5, 3, 5. Right? It's just like this little box. Well, if we move to position one, okay. The one here between five and eight. If we come down to the middle two strings, we have another box. Five, seven, five, seven. Okay, so we've got a box on the top three, five, three, five. A box in the middle, five, seven, five, seven. And then a box on the bottom. Eight, ten. Eight, ten. So we have three little boxes. Three, five, three, five. That's position five. Five, seven, five, seven. That's position one. Eight, eight, ten. Eight, ten. That's position. Position two.
So you can work just practicing playing across, called a cross section. You can see we're moving across the fretboard. Okay, so that's the first part of this. But what I'm going to do now is show you how we're going to connect them using some slides real quick. I hope you guys are enjoying this lesson so far. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications this way. YouTube let you know when I release more videos just like this one. Okay, so whether you're on acoustic or an electric, this will work. But I'm going to show you now how to connect all of these cross sections together for a much cooler sound. So we've got three, five, three, five. That first block. Right. Well, what we're going to do now is we're going to slide up to the seventh fret on that A string. So it's going to sound like this.
Hear that slide? So the third finger is sliding up two frets to the seventh fret.
All right. Because remember, the fifth fret is the sharing point between position five and position one. So we've now gone from position five and we've now slid into position one. Now we're going to be right in place to play 5, 7, 5, 7 on the middle two strings. And then we're going to slide up to position two by sliding that third finger up to the ninth fret. So sound like this.
Cool. Now the bottom one is 8, 10, 8, 10. And you can slide up to the 12th fret. Okay, so now we've gone from the third fret on the top string to the 12th fret on the high E string. So I'm going to do real quick before I show you how you can kind of play around with this a little bit. I'm just going to go in for a real quick close up so that you guys can see my fingers moving through this little cross section. Alright, so here it is in close up for you guys. We're starting three, five, three, five. Slide to seven. Okay. Five, seven, five, seven. Slide to nine, eight, ten. Eight, ten. Slide to 12 again. Three, five, three, five. Slide to seven. 5, 7, 5, 7. Slide to 9, 8, 10. 8, 10. Slide to 12.
So what I would recommend is going through and practicing the cross section first. But now, this is a really cool thing. In another video, we added this bottom box already.
To that first position. Because, you know, usually what happens is people learn this, a minor pentatonic scale, and then they get stuck just going up and down that scale. And they don't, like, know where to go from there. So we've added the bottom box here. We've now added this top box up here. So instead of always ending your scale and going.
Instead of ending on the root note, the A there, you can come from behind.
So you can come from below up. Instead of always having to come from above, look down. Okay, so you kind of got the.
Okay, so that's another option that you can do. The other thing that's really cool about the these cross sections is not only do we get to add the boxes, but the great thing about these three positions is that the bottom strings.
Overlap and line up. Okay, what do I mean by that? So the third fret, you've got the threes together. You've got the fives together. You've got the eights together. Okay. You've got the tens together. Okay. Can't do it on the 12th fret, but we've got.
Okay, they overlap, which gives you these cool little double stops. So now you, you know, if you're playing.
Think of that, like, Chuck Berry type. That's where that comes from. It's these little double stops on the 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th.
Okay, you can add little, cool, little. Little spices to your playing now. Okay, again, you don't just have to play.
Down the position.
Now. You know how to slide in and out of those positions.
Okay, you can come backwards.
Slide into this position now.
Okay, you can slide in and out of these things. So don't just work the scales top to bottom.
Work them sideways.
See what I did there? 3, 5. 3, 5, 5, 8. 5, 8, 8, 10. 8, 10.
Just sliding on that bottom string between the notes the same. You can do the same on the second string. Three to five.
Three to eight, you know, five to 12.
Okay. Just little different ideas that you guys can play with. So instead of, like I said, going.
Top to bottom.
Now you can play.
Now you can play from the third fret all the way to the 12th fret across three different positions. And it just gives you a lot more room to run with your guitar playing, your improvising. So try those out. I hope you guys enjoyed the cross sections. If you did, leave a comment below for me to let you know that you found this useful. YouTube is going to pop a couple more videos up over here. Hope you guys have some fun, and I'll see you in another lesson video real soon.
