How to Practice Pentatonic Scales

This is part 2 of a series on the pentatonic scale. Part 1 can be found here.

When you first learn the pentatonic patterns it is fine to just start at the first note in the pattern, play until you reach the highest note and play back down the pattern. This is a logical way to practice and it makes sense to start out that way. However, this method of practicing has some limitations.

Limitation Number One
If you just play the scale in order over and over again your fingers will become used to playing it that way and they will want to play it that way everytime. This is called muscle memory and is actually very useful. You want your fingers to “know” the pattern all on their own. But you want them to know other ways of playing the pattern as well.

Otherwise when it comes time to compose or improvise with these scales, your fingers will begin to lead the way because they are so comfortable playing the scale in a certain order. All your melodies will start to sound the same

Limitation Number Two
When you practice these scales you are not only training your fingers to play the scales – you are also training your ear to hear the scales. Eventually you will begin hearing the notes in your head before you even play them. Again, this is a very good thing but unless you change the way you practice your scales, your ear will only be use to hearing the scale in order. This also limits your ability to easily and naturally compose and improvise.

Note: for more on ear training check out my ear training power course and the related articles on this site.

The Solution

So you need to practice your pentatonic scales in different ways. In addition to playing the scales ascending and descending you should try the following:

Exercise 1
First note of the pattern, third note | second note, fourth note | third note, fifth note | etc

For example if you were to do this exercise with pattern 1 in the key of A minor it would look like this:

|----------|----------|----------|----------|
|----------|----------|----------|----5----8|
|----------|----------|----5----7|-5----7---|
|----------|----5----7|-5----7---|----------|
|---5---7--|-5----7---|----------|----------|
|-5---8----|----------|----------|----------|

Exercise 2
First note, second, third | second, third, fourth | third, fourth, fifth | etc.

Exercise 3
First, second, third, fourth | second, third, fourth, fifth | third, fourth, fifth, sixth | etc.

Exercise 4
First, fourth | second, fifth | third, sixth | etc.

For each exercixe: once you reach the highest note you can reach in any given pattern you should play the entire exercise backwards until you are at the starting note again.

After practicing the pentatonic patterns this way for a while you will really have a good command of them. Also, your fingers and ears will be better equipped to play any lick that you throw at them.

Also, be sure to watch for opportunities to use the finger roll in these exercises.

The next step towards developing your scale knowledge and your ear is to learn a set of simple, standard licks based on these patterns. That will be the subject of the next article on pentatonic scales.

These directions are for right-handed players. Reverse the directions if you’re a lefty.

Rest the guitar on your right leg. Keep your left elbow relaxed and near your body.

Keep your back straight. No slouching!

Left hand fingers are nice and curved - not flat.

The right hand pinky is resting on the body of the guitar.

This article is a part of the podcast for beginning guitar players.

First place the pick on your index finger exactly as shown below. Notice that the edge of the pick rests right at the corner of your fingernail. Make sure you point the pick in the right direction.

Next, put your thumb on the pick. Again, the pick touches your thumb at the corner of your thumbnail.

This article is a part of the podcast for beginning guitar players.

Ear Training for Guitar

In the first article on ear training for guitar you learned why ear training is important, what an interval is and the names of the most common intervals. In this article you will learn how to recognize these intervals by ear.

Association is Key

Most people actually have a better ear than they might think. The key is taking what you already know and learning how to apply it to the guitar.

For example, you might be able to hear the first few notes to “Happy Birthday” in your head. The interval between the first two notes is easy to figure out – they are the same notes. Now suppose I told you that the interval between the second and third notes is a major 2nd. Whenever you need to recall what a major 2nd sounds like just think of those notes in “Happy Birthday”. Try it now.

Now suppose you were trying to figure out how to play “Yankee Doodle” by ear. Again, the first note is just played twice in a row so that is easy to figure out. The second and third notes sound just like the second and third notes of “Happy Birthday”. So you know that the interval between those notes is a major 2nd.

So now you know what a major second sounds like. If you can associate a song with each interval then you will soon be able to quickly recognize these intervals by ear.

Note, do not get frustrated if you cannot recognize them yet. It takes time and practice to become really comfortable with them. In my Ear Training for Guitar course I give plenty of audio examples including intervals, chords and musical phrases so that you can practice learning them.

You can use the first two notes of these example songs to help you remember what each interval sounds like. Or better yet, find your own examples.

Hopefully by now you can see that if you can play any interval on your guitar and you can recognize any interval when you hear it, then you can play anything that you hear. Remember - this will not be an overnight process. It takes some time and it takes some work.

Also, you don’t have to master every interval and chord before you will start seeing benefits. I found for myself that my improvising greatly improved almost right after I started training this way. To this day, I still cannot listen to the Brandenberg Concertos once and then play them back note for note but my ability to learn songs by ear, to improvise and to write songs has skyrocketed. Try it for yourself!

As always, I would love to hear your feedback. If this article has helped you, I’d love to hear your success story. If you think it can be improved to help others, I am very interested in hearing what you have to say. You can contact me a info@myOnlineGuitar.

I also offer the “Ear Training for Guitar” course which you can purchase from this site. The course expands on the material in this article series in much more depth and also provides new material not covered. The course includes diagrams, examples and audio tracks which will help you to develop a great ear and to become a better guitarist – guaranteed!

Good luck.

I added a forum to the site today. There is a new link in the sidebar on the right called “Forums”. If you click on that link the forum will open.

If you have guitar, bass, mandolin or charango questions that you would like myself or others to help you out with please feel free to leave a post in the forum.

Brian

Ear Training for Guitar

This article is the first in a series on ear training for guitar. Part One will give you an introduction to ear training, tell you why you should train your ear and teach you what an interval is.

IMPORTANT: Many people think that you need to be born with a good ear – “you either got it or you don’t”. This is not true! While it is true that some people will have an easier time from the beginning, I have yet to work with someone that has not been able to develop a better ear and become a better musician through these techniques.

Why is Ear Training important?

Imagine being able to play a melody or chord progression on your guitar after listening to it and without having to fumble around trying to figure out each note one at a time. How about being able to play the melodies you hear in your head?

At one time this seemed like an impossible goal to me. I had figured out some guitar solos one note at a time by rewinding them over and over again. This worked but it was tedious.

After I started practicing ear training it became much easier to figure out how to play things that I heard. I could figure out solos and progressions more quickly and it was more fun. It became like a game – I would see if I could guess a phrase by ear and then check myself by playing it on the guitar.

After doing some ear training I was able to better match what I heard in my head while improvising instead of just letting my fingers choose notes based on scales and patterns I had learned. My playing became more musical, more natural and more expressive.

How do you practice ear training for Guitar?

As a guitar player, there are a few things you should do when you start training your ear.
Learn what an interval is if you don’t already know.
Learn to recognize specific intervals by ear
Learn how to play these intervals on the guitar
Learn to recognize chords by ear

Think about it - if you mastered these skills and ideas then you will be able to play any phrase or chord progression you hear in your head, from a recording or anywhere else. That is, as long as you have the technical ability to play it.

What is an interval?

An interval is just the distance between two notes. Suppose you play a note on the first fret of the first string and then a note on the 2nd fret of that same string. The interval between these two notes is one fret.

Usually we refer to the distance between notes as being a certain number of steps rather than frets. This is easy to understand though since one fret is equal to a half step. An interval of two frets is a whole step, an interval of three frets is a step and a half and so on.

There are other commonly used names for all of these intervals too:

1/2 minor 2nd
1 major second
1 1/2 minor third
2 major third
2 1/2 Perfect fourth
3 flat fifth
3 1/2 perfect fifth
4 minor 6th
4 1/2 major 6th
5 minor 7th
5 1/2 major 7th
6 steps octave

It is critical that you learn how to play all of these intervals on your guitar. You need to be as comfortable with them as you are with scales and chords. I teach an easy, fun and effective way of learning them in my Ear Training for Guitar Course. I also provide you with fretboard diagrams that help you to understand and learn how to play intervals.

This is the first article in a series on ear training for guitar. In the next article we’ll talk about how to recognize these intervals by ear.

I also offer the “Ear Training for Guitar” course which you can purchase from this site. The course expands on the material in this article series in much more depth and also provides new material not covered. The included diagrams, examples and audio tracks will help you to develop a great ear and to become a better guitarist – guaranteed!

Click to learn about The Ear Training Power Course for Guitar