How to Play the Major Pentatonic Scale

What's going on guys, and this is a lesson on how to play the major pentatonic scale. Now this is very easy to physically play, however, a lot of beginners and improvers struggle with improvising or even really using this major pentatonic scale at all because uh it's a confusing uh sound and and uh thing to improvise with and learn solos with when you're used to this minor pentatonic sound, which is why I've included this in as part of this. Free acoustic major scale lead guitar course of which this is lesson 8. So if you haven't checked out the previous videos in this series, please do so that you can really apply what we're learning here. You can apply these major scale notes, uh, or the major pentatonic notes, cos it's the major pentatonic is the same family as the major scale. It uses the exact same notes, it just has two missing from the major scale in fact. But it uses the same scale shape as the minor pentatonic. So to avoid any confusion, let's get straight in for a close-up and I'll show you exactly how you should learn and practise this scale and then improvise with it in this close-up. So let's just have a quick close-up on this major pentatonic scale. The major scale in the key of C, so the C major scale that we've played so far, started from the C note at 8 fret on the thickest Estring. And we played it. In this fashion, if you were playing the C minor pentatonic scale, we would again start from the 8th fret C note and start with the first finger. Hopefully that is a recap for some of you because you should be, should be confident playing those two before you learn the major pentatonic scale. Um, I'll tell you why in a second, but there's a really, really easy way to get there, and as I've explained before, we move from the C note. At 8th fret, if we wanna play the C major pentatonic scale, move down 3 frets, 123, and then we essentially play that minor pentatonic scale that we've already learned, but we need to start from the little finger, cause we need to start from that C note. And therefore, our octaves, compared to the minor pentatonic scale, where the octaves are, have changed. We need to go through um. 6 notes, so 5 notes of the, the major pentatonic, and then it's the 6th 1 that is the octave. So you're just playing the minor pentatonic scale that you know, and we all know and love, we've played it a gazillion times by now, hopefully. But we start with the little finger, and then we just go ascending, so down the fretboard but up in pitch. 1. 456. So it's 12345. That's our pentatonic, um, the element of it, there's 5 notes. And then when we get to that 6th note, we've essentially gone back to the 1 again, cos this is a C, and we started on a C. So if I just to, just to give you an overview, 12. 451 451. OK. That's the major pentatonic scale. You can see that shape, we're still using every fret of the or every string at the first finger, whatever fret the first finger happens to be at. And we're still using this shape here where we're at 8th fret and then it comes in. And yes, this is essentially the same as the A minor pentatonic, the exact same notes. But the way that we use it is different. Uh, we want to be with our improvisation and, um, with our soloing and everything that we do, uh, with the licks that you learn, you, you want to be more centric around the C notes. That are highlighted in the diagram, rather than around. The A note, so if I was soloing it using A minor pentatonic, I might be going. You know, something like that. Now when I did that, I started from higher or lower notes. But I'm finishing my licks and I'm finishing what I'm playing, or starting what I'm playing. On the A note. You know, that's, that's what I'd be doing. If I'm improvising or learning, learning a solo or practising with the major pentatonic scale. I've gotta be centric and start or finish my licks, or as I say, just commonly end and finish. I'll be centric around the C notes, which are circled, 8th fret, thickest Estring. 5th fret of the 3rd string, 8th fret of the finished string. So they've all moved one up from where they were on the minor pentatonic. And when we do that. I got a bit of a rattle there, cos I've lowered my action on my guitar. There we go, got rid of it. um. Yes, we're more centric around those, otherwise it won't fit what you're soloing over. We'll have more of this to come in future lead guitar courses. This is just showing you how to play the scale, and of course you can apply the patterns that we've learned previously, uh, including the three note pattern. 123, back 112. back one. Or the 1234. Apply those same patterns here with this scale and you apply them with any scale and the same kind of note bends. Are all in the same area, the string bending that you may have gone for before, it even uses the same, you know, position 2 or or position 5 licks if you, You're doing the the note the scale extensions, which are taught, those scale extensions I've just demoed there are taught in my electric lead guitar course where we focus mainly on the minor pentatonic. This That is taught in lesson 2 of my lead guitar course, or lesson 1 of my lead guitar course actually, um, for, for electric guitar. Um, and we're gonna be covering more about this idea in, in a future lead guitar course that I have coming up.