A short YouTube guitar lesson by Lauren Bateman explaining the minor pentatonic scale, specifically the A minor pentatonic in first position. She defines pentatonic (five tones vs a seven-note major/minor scale), identifies the A tonic at the 5th fret of the high E string, and gives an explicit fingering pattern across strings (E: 5–8; A: 5–7; D: 5–7; G: 5–7; B: 5–8; e: 5–8). She demonstrates playing the pattern up and down using alternate picking, suggests simple practice exercises (limit to 2–3 strings or middle notes, use hammer-ons, bends, slides), and points to a following video/backing track for applying the scale in different keys.
Hey, guitar enthusiasts, I've had a lot of requests for people for me to do some scale stuff. So in this lesson we're going to be going over what is the pentatonic scale.
Now, before I go into showing you what the pentatonic scale is on the guitar, I just want to tell you a little bit about what a pentatonic scale means. So it's pentatonic, five tones. We have something that is called the, the major scale. And we have the aeolian, the minor scale. Don't worry about the terminology. But usually a scale is seven notes. So think of do a dear, a female dear, do re, mi, fa, so la, ti, do. So that is a seven tone scale. Well, the pentatonic scale is only five of those tones. And the one I'm going to show you today is the minor pentatonic scale. In this video, specifically I'm going to be showing you the A minor pentatonic. So let's start there. Now the A minor pentatonic is usually where most guitar players start when learning these, these pentatonic scales and they're very popular in blues and jazz. Think of a lot of stuff, you know, think of Led Zeppelin, think of like Iron Maiden stuff. All of that is, there's lots of pentatonic, you know, Lynyrd Skynyrd, all those great bands, all those classic rock bands. We're going to start with a minor pentatonic. And what that means is a, the A note is the, the tonic or the home note of this scale. All you need to know if this is sounding like French, because I try not to sound French for people, is this note, the fifth fret on your top string is the A note. And that's going to be our home, okay? That's how we know, that's how we are going to find the scale in, in another video. The next video after this, I'm gonna go over how you can use the scale and move it around the neck of the guitar. But in this video, I'm just gonna focus on one position. Now we're going to start with our first finger on the fifth fret of the top E string, okay? And we're going to be going 58 on the top string and you're going to play that with your pinky, okay? So 5 8. The next string down is going to be 5 7. Okay? So so far we have 58 on the top string, 57 on the A string, 57 on the D string, 57 on the G string. So that's very nice. And Simple. In the middle, you get three five sevens in a row. So let's start from the top again before I show you the ending. So we have 5, 8, 5, 7, 5, 7, 5, seven. And then the bottom two strings are 5, 8. Again, 5, 8, 5, 8. So if I play from the top, it's going to sound like.
Okay, and we can come backwards now. Eight, five, eight, five, seven, five, seven, five, seven, five, eight, five. Hey, guys. Hope you're enjoying this lesson so far. Make sure to subscribe and turn on your notifications. This way you'll know when I release more videos just like this one. And what I'm doing on this is I am using alternate picking. I'm going down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, up. Okay. And then usually if I were going to do a turnaround on the bottom, I would go, here's 5, 8, 5, 8, 5, 8th, 5, 7, 5, 7, 5. Up, down, up, down. So all together it would be.
So if you think of a song like S.C. way to Heaven, most of that solo is a minor pentatonic.
Okay. A lot of that is going to be a minor pentatonic stuff. So what can you do with this scale? Well, what I recommend you do is first just memorize the pattern. Go all the way down.
Okay. Learn that upwards and backwards. Go through that back and forth. And then what I would do is maybe try going down three strings.
And then coming backwards one. So what did I do? I went 5, 8, 5, 7, 5, 7, 5, seven, five. Okay.
Okay. Maybe we're going to go down four strings and come back two.
Okay. So that's all I want you to do, is just play around with this scale.
Up and down and get used to the placement of it. And, you know, in the beginning, a lot of people, when they learn pentatonic scales, they just tend to do that. They just tend to go up and down and back and forth. What I want you to focus on picking just two strings at a time. So when you solo, find something on YouTube that is in the key of A minor or in the key of C major. You can do that. Okay. You have to line these scales up to the right key in order for it to sound right. That's what I'm going to go over in the next video. But for now, when you're on YouTube, just search backing track. A minor pentatonic backing track, C major. Okay. And this scale will work fine over that. And all I want you to do is not focus on playing a million notes. Try just playing two notes or three.
Okay, so just try playing two. Maybe you're just going to play with the middle two.
You can do like a little hammer on.
Just. All I've got is four notes.
But do what you can with four notes to get you out of the habit. Because everyone starts and they just do this top to bottom. And then they go back up and they're like, well, I don't feel like I'm really doing anything. So just give yourself limits. Start with the. Maybe you're going to only give yourself the middle three. The five sevens. That's fun.
You know, you can do bends, you can do slides and other stuff that I really haven't gone over here. I do go over that stuff in my lead guitar 101 course. But this just is just to get you guys started. So one more time, let's go through the pattern top to bottom. Ready? Five, eight, five, seven, five, seven, five, Seven, five, eight, five, eight, five, Eight, five, seven, five, 7, five, seven, five, eight, five. Hey guys, if you like this video, make sure to give me a thumbs up. I'm gonna throw a couple more video there. One of those will be an A minor backing track that you guys can go check out and practice using this scale over. Go check those out. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video soon.
