Shape 5 of the A Minor Pentatonic scale starts all the way up at the 15th fret! Because it's so high we tend to only play this on electric guitars - the frets we need aren't really accessible on most acoustic guitars. However, we can still use this shape in other keys where it's found lower down the neck - for instance in E Minor Pentatonic (as covered in the next module) this would start on the 10th fret. We can also play this shape in A lower down the neck starting on the 3rd fret, as we saw in lesson 2.

Key points

• Start on the root note of Shape 1 and move up 5 positions on string 6 to Shape 5
• It's fine to use only the 1st and 3rd fingers this high up the neck, even though we're covering 4 frets

A Minor Pentatonic - Shape 5

With this shape we move a full 5 positions up from the root note on string 6. The notes marked in blue show the notes leading up to the shape, and the notes marked in green show Shape 5.

A Minor Pentatonic - The 5 Shapes

Blue = Shape 1 | Red = Shape 2 | Pink = Shape 3 | Yellow = Shape 4 | Green = Shape 5

Exercise - A Minor Pentatonic Shape 5