Guitar How-To

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The two pentatonic scales we use in guitar solos are the major pentatonic and the minor pentatonic scale. The major pentatonic scale has five notes – the root note, the second note, the third, fifth and sixth. The minor pentatonic scale contains the root, flattened third, fourth, fifth and flattened seventh. In the key of C the major pentatonic scale is C D E G A and the minor pentatonic scale is C Eb F G Bb

The minor pentatonic scale is commonly used to solo over guitar chords. Mastering the knack of soloing with the minor pentatonic scale will add unimagined excitement to your hitherto dreary guitar solos. So how do we best exploit this handy guitar player’s tool? We are going to learn to how to play solos over major, minor and dominant chords.

Let’s take a common chord progression using the root, fourth and fifth notes of the scale. If we are playing a song in the key of C major, the I, IV and V chords are C, F and G major.

For every major chord there is a relative minor chord. You can best find the relative minor of a major chord on your guitar by finding the note that is three frets below the major chord’s root note.

Here’s a video guitar lesson on the minor pentatonic scale . . .

Let’s say we have a C major chord, the root note will be C. If you take the C note on the fifth string of the guitar which is at the third fret, three notes below that gives us the open fifth string which is the note A. So if you ask what the relative minor of C major is, the answer is A minor. So if you want to play a solo over a C major chord, you would use the A minor pentatonic scale. To play a guitar solo over an F chord, you would use the D minor pentatonic, and over the G major chord, the scale to use would be the E minor pentatonic.

It is a little simpler to explain how to solo over minor chords. You just play the E minor pentatonic over an E minor chord, a D minor pentatonic scale over a D minor chord, and so on.

For playing over dominant seventh chords you would play the relative minor pentatonic scale or you could use the minor pentatonic one tone below the root of the dominant seventh chord.

To simplify things you could just use the A minor pentatonic for all the chords in the key of C. As with all musical theory, converting these ideas into practice is easier than explaining them.

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Slide guitar adds an extra aspect to any song but it is typically used in blues and country guitar accompaniment. Originally guitar slides were made from the necks of bottles or the blades of knives but nowadays you just go into a guitar shop and buy a metal or glass cylinder that you slip onto your finger and that immediately changes your status to slide guitar player. But you could take into account that a homemade slide will give you a rep for being an innovator.

Slide playing enhances the music of any kind of guitar, whether acoustic or electric. The way you use your guitar slide is up to you. You can put it onto any of your left hand fingers and you are good to go. Oce you have that slide fitted a whole new world of musical experimentation opens up for you.

The things people have used as guitar slides include handle bars from push-bikes, plastic tubes, spark plug socket wrenches and ceramic bits and pieces. There is even a company in France that makes slides from some kind of stone! While you are experimenting with various slides, you will possibly want to use heavy gauge strings.

You can begin your exploring the world of slide guitar by choosing whether to go with a standard metal guitar slide or one made of glass. Duane Allman famously used pill bottle that he discovered worked as a guitar slide when he was recovering from an illness. A glass slide will give you a more jangly tone while the sound of a metal slide is much warmer. You could also work with slides of different weights as that makes some difference too.

Once you have more or less decided which slide to use, fit it to different fingers on your left hand. Try playing for a while with the slide on your first finger, then switch to the second or third. Whatever feels most comfortable from the beginning will be what you use forever because your comfort is what decides your flexibility. The bottom line is don’t be swayed by what somebody else uses, let your own hand tell you what it prefers.

There are a couple of technical things to consider though, for instance id you put the slide on your little finger you are leaving your other fingers free to fret notes to add some variety to your playing. If you use an open tuning as many slide guitar players do, you could use the first, second or third finger which gives you the opportunity to use a heavier slide.

When you first start using a guitar slide it will be more comfortable to use a guitar with a high action. This will give you a much cleaner sound. And don’t forget that when you use a guitar slide the notes are directly over the guitar’s frets, not behind them as they are when you are fretting with your fingers.

Here’s a nice video guitar lesson on how to use a guitar slide . . .

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