Guitar Pentatonic Scales...
the smart (easy) way!

Pentatonic Scales - The Basics (Part 1 of 3)

Learning guitar pentatonic scales is one of the first steps to soloing and improvisation.

Understanding pentatonics and their relationship(s) to the fretboard opens the door to full command of the guitar.

This series is divided into 3 sections. The first covers the basics of pentatonic scales. The second article builds on the first, and explains how to actually apply this knowledge in practice, how to play pentatonic scales, on the guitatr fretboard. The third article makes learning guitar pentatonic scales super easy... Enjoy!

Be sure to check out the links at the bottom of this article to explore more on pentatonic scales and the guitar (there is a lot to discover).

As their name says, pentatonic scales contain 5 notes:

C Major Pentatonic Scale: C D E G A"Penta" means 5 in latin.

There are only 2 basic kinds of pentatonic scales: Major and Minor.

C Major Pentatonic Scale: C D E G A                A Minor Pentatonic Scale: A C D E G

In fact, they are called relative Major and Minor pentatonic scales.
This means -for instance, in the case of C Major Pentatonic- that C Major Pent and A Minor Pent are composed of the EXACT SAME notes...

...in different order.

Another very important basic fact about pentatonic scales is that they all contain either a major or a minor triad.
This means that they all contain the Root (1), a third (major or minor, 3), the perfect fifth (5), and 2 other notes:

Major and minor pentatonic scales, and their corresponding triads.

Other articles on pentatonic scales you may be interested in:

Guitar Scales: Section Overview

1. Scales and Modes from A to Z: section index

2. Guitar Pentatonic Scales 1, 2, 3

Go back to the main Guitar Scales section
Go back to Guitar Theory in Depth