Learn Guitar Lesson: The Famous 5 Note Scale - Play Great Guitar Solos With Only Five Notes
Some guitar players seem to pick up a guitar and start playing great solos without any effort, they hardly raise a sweat; other unfortunates struggle with their instrument all their life without making any noticeable progress.
I guess it just comes down to those that 'have it' can do it and the those who 'don't have it' are never are able to do it.
WRONG!!!
It all comes down to 'those that know how to do it', can do it and 'those who don't know how to do it' can't. It has nothing to do with natural talent or any other 'old wives' tales about learning music.
Early on in my guitar playing adventures I was often puzzled by certain individuals who were 'not the sharpest knives in the draw', yet they could play really neat solos on the guitar, whilst I (who was taking music lessons) could only play a few kiddies tunes.
It turns out that a particular five note scale is the secret, which five note scale? The minor pentatonic scale.
Technically speaking any group of five notes could be called a pentatonic scale but the one that interest us as guitar players is the minor pentatonic scale.
Extensive research has revealed that the notes of the minor pentatonic scale can be found in almost every culture on earth, this is truly a universal scale and of course explains it's popularity (both on guitar and in music.)
Music of the whole earth:
Here's something to think about... in days gone by, people all over the world working in isolation (from each other) arrived at the same (or almost the same) set of notes.
Why five notes?... easy, people have five fingers.
Why do the notes(s) in the scale vary (slightly) from country to country? Again, that's an easy one, it's because of the size of the individual's hand.
When a person in India is making a wooden flute the distance between the holes will be slightly differ to a flute made in Africa - it makes sense doesn't it? The instrument maker would craft their instrument to suit the size and shape of their hand(s), this accounts for some slight variations in the same set of 'universal' notes.
The amazing discovery is that people all over the world have been searching for a particular set of notes that all feel 'right'. It's as if we all come to the planet with the music inside us, it's just a matter of working out how to get the music out.
Now, let's take a look at the famous five notes of the minor pentatonic scale; I'll use the "F" minor pentatonic scale for demonstration purposes.
The notes of the "F" minor pentatonic are:
F minor pentatonic scale = F - Ab - Bb - C - Eb - (F)
If you are familiar with minor scales on the guitar you will realize that the minor pentatonic scale could be created by modifying the 'natural minor scale'.
F natural minor scale = F - G - Ab - Bb - C - Db - Eb - (F)
By omitting the second and sixth notes we produce the "F" minor pentatonic scale.
And now I'd like to invite you to get free access to my "How To Remember 1,000 Songs" eCourse. You can download the course for free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com
From Mike Hayes - The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar System
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