Moveable Pentatonic (Guitar Lesson)

Continuing on with the concept of moveable forms on the guitar neck that we began in the last lesson, this time we’ll apply this idea to a scale. Starting off with a specific set of locations on the neck, we’ll then take a look at how a scale can be moved around just like a chord.

The scale we’re using is an E minor pentatonic, covering a little over two octaves. We’ve looked at pentatonic scales in the open position before and incorporated some shifting, but this one is played almost entirely in the upper positions. The open low E string is included for the sake of completeness, and it just sounds better to start from the root – but everything else uses fretted notes only and is therefore moveable to different places on the neck. The trick is to memorize not just the specific locations on the neck for this scale but to learn the relationships between the parts.

Notice the extensive use of the glide shift in this scale. Not only does it make for a nice fluid sound, it also makes transitions very easy…moving around is as simple as gliding two frets up or down the same string. Remember that “glide” is not the same as “slide” in the sense that you don’t hear the transition when shifting – we release the pressure to stop the sound but maintain contact with the string. A slide maintains the pressure so that we actually hear the finger moving along the string. They’re two different effects and both are worth practicing.

When you take look at the tablature, you might also notice that if we break up the exercise into small sections we could say that it’s made up of pairs of notes, either on the same string or on adjacent strings. These segments almost always use the index and ring fingers on two notes two frets apart, with the exception of the highest note at the eighth fret of the B string (played with the middle finger). The exercise connects all these notes together to create a long line, but any one of these small note groups could be moved to a different part of the neck and become part of a new pentatonic scale. The entire scale could also be moved if we disregard the first note (the open low E) and move the entire pattern to another location, preserving the fingerings and slides.

The note we end on, the E on the seventh fret of the 5th string, is the root or home note of the scale. If we do move the scale, the easiest way to keep track of where we are is to identify the root: in other words, notice where that note appears in the sequence and use it as a reference to locate the others. This is a more advanced concept and will become easier as you get to know the neck better…just keep in mind that the idea is to preserve the fingering pattern, no matter what position you’re in. The shifts might make it a little more challenging to keep track, but just take note of which strings you shift on and how far they go…in this case, it will always be a two-fret shift up or down with the index or ring finger. The only exception is the open E in the beginning and the jump from open E to the 5th string E at the end.

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