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Learn Guitar Trick #5 – Minor Pentatonic Scale System F# minor

By Mike Hayes | December 22, 2009

Here is a great trick to try when you are next out and about with
your guitar playing friends: wait until no one has a guitar in
their hands and ask them “what are the notes in a F# minor
pentatonic scale”. Don’t worry I’m going to give you the answer
in a moment … at least you will know!

I’d be very surprised if your guitar playing buddies could give
the correct answer, which is: F# – A – B – C# – E – (F#)

So what’s the big deal with this F# minor scale? Who cares?

I think almost everyone would agree there’s no point in doing
something if you don’t know what you are doing; outside the
musical world there are always plenty of obvious examples of what
happens to those to don’t know what they are doing e.g., those
who do their own mechanical work on their car are easy to spot
… they’re usually parked on the side of the road making a few
more minor adjustments.

With guitar playing it can be harder to spot, appearances can be
very deceiving, on the surface guitarists who can fly all over
the fingerboard like a ‘bee in a bottle’ entertaining the
audience with their lightening fast finger gymnastics appear to
have it all together … yet dig a little deeper and you will
find 95% of them can’t tell you what notes they are
playing.

The key to being a good guitarist / musician is to know the names
of the notes in each scale and their scale step numbers.

It’s time to get to work on the F# minor pentatonic scale.

The notes in the F# minor pentatonic scale are:

F# – A – B – C# – E – (F#)

If you played these notes anywhere on the guitar fingerboard you
would be playing the F# minor pentatonic scale.

Here’s the most common fingering pattern for the scale

F# – using your first finger behind the second fret, sixth string

A – played with the fourth finger, fifth fret, sixth string

B – first finger, second fret, fifth string

C# – played with your third finger behind the fourth fret, fifth
string

E – first finger, second fret, fourth string

F# Minor pentatonic scale pattern

—————————
—————————
—————————
——————-2—[4]-
———–2—4———–
-[2]—5——————-

Keynotes indicated as [ ]

When you are ready play the same scale one octave higher.

F# minor pentatonic played one octave higher:

———————-[2]-
————–2—5——-
——2—4—————
-[4]———————-
————————–
————————–

It’s important to hear how the notes of the scale sound over a
pre-recorded background. Using power chords derived from the
notes of the F# minor pentatonic scale we can create great
sounding chord progressions.

Typical chord progression(s) would be:

F# /// | A /// | B /// | C# /// ||

or

F# /// | B /// |C# /// | B /// ||

The key of F# is an important one, it’s a key many professional
guitarists play in because it gives them a fresh and interesting
sound. Many newbie guitar players overlook keys such as F# and C#
because they sound or look as if they are difficult but as you
can already see there is nothing really difficult about them at
all.

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

You’ll learn about hit song templates, simple scales,easy chords, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson, Guitar Fretboard, Learn And Master Guitar | No Comments »

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