Our second unit brings in the pentatonic scale, and with it comes more musical exercises that can be instantly applied to your soloing. Our aim with this unit is to continue to build technique, strength and speed in the fingers, as well as now learning these 5 shapes across the fretboard. These exercises will, therefore, be crucial in developing your lead guitar skills!
First up, let’s draw out the 5 shapes of the pentatonic scale, just so you have them as a reference. If you simply do not know these shapes, then now is the time to learn them! We have some great courses that dive into detail with how these shapes work, especially this one .
For this exercise, we demo it at 80BPM 16th Notes, then scroll down to 60BPM 8th notes. Our focus is to get it sounding perfect, slowly. As you grow in confidence with this exercise you can start to push the speed, but we would always recommend practicing this slowly first as a warm up. Not only does it loosen up your fingers, but by training your fingers at a slower pace, the speed will be there when you need it.
With our previous exercise really nailing the down up approach to the pentatonic shapes, let’s now start to think about them more laterally. We will take the 5 shapes in the key of G minor and use a repeating 3’s sequence to get them moving across the neck. We really need to pay attention to where the shapes blend, so that we can know this for changing keys. Try to visualise the shapes rather than see the fret numbers! Good luck!
For this exercise, we demo it at 80BPM 16th Notes, then scroll down to 60BPM 8th notes. Our focus is to get it sounding perfect, slowly. As you grow in confidence with this exercise you can start to push the speed, but we would always recommend practicing this slowly first as a warm up. Not only does it loosen up your fingers, but by training your fingers at a slower pace, the speed will be there when you need it.
Our last exercise really worked on a cool sequence that takes you through the neck from low to high, so now lets check out a sequence from high to low. This time we work on a pattern of 5’s, similar to an Eric Johnson or Joe Bonamassa style sequence. This is far more challenging as we seem to cut across the beat, however, once you lock into the exercise, it becomes easier to hear the beat behind it. Just be sure to continue your 16th note picking and you’ll get it!
For this exercise, we have changed the key. We are using the A Minor pentatonic shapes 1-3 and we have drawn those up below for your reference. Make sure you visualise these scales as you play through the exercise.
For this exercise, we demo it at 80BPM 16th Notes, then scroll down to 60BPM 8th notes. Our focus is to get it sounding perfect, slowly. As you grow in confidence with this exercise you can start to push the speed, but we would always recommend practicing this slowly first as a warm up. Not only does it loosen up your fingers, but by training your fingers at a slower pace, the speed will be there when you need it.
If you’ve never done octaves like this, then this exercise will be a tough nut for you to crack, but so worth it! Firstly, we are learning 4 octave shapes, from the E, A, D and G string. Then we will be applying those shapes to the first and second shape of the pentatonic scale in A minor. We will need to work with a much slower BPM on this one too, as this is very challenging.
For this exercise, we need to learn the 4 main octave shapes you would use on the fretboard. The shape from the E and A string is the same, and the shape from the D and G string is the same. Here they are written out:
For this exercise, we demo it at 60BPM 16th Notes, then scroll down to 50BPM 8th notes. Our focus is to get it sounding perfect, slowly. As you grow in confidence with this exercise you can start to push the speed, but we would always recommend practicing this slowly first as a warm up. Not only does it loosen up your fingers, but by training your fingers at a slower pace, the speed will be there when you need it.
For our final exercise in this unit we will learn to slide through the shapes! This is a great exercise to apply to your improvisation and soloing as it sounds so much more melodic straight away. We also do the exercise in 2 keys, A minor and D minor. This really helps us to learn how to start a pentatonic exercise from the root note on the A string (rather than always the E string).
As well as the A Minor scale from shape 1 - 3 (from earlier), we also have the D minor scale from shape 4 - 1. These shapes are shown below (all 5 for good measure)!
For this exercise, we demo it at 70BPM 16th Notes, then scroll down to 60BPM 8th notes. Our focus is to get it sounding perfect, slowly. As you grow in confidence with this exercise you can start to push the speed, but we would always recommend practicing this slowly first as a warm up. Not only does it loosen up your fingers, but by training your fingers at a slower pace, the speed will be there when you need it.
Here is our second mega workout, combining all of the exercises in one, across various speeds. You play along with the video, but make sure you know the order of exercises here.
Here's our awesome interactive tab of the full workout that's synced up to the video above! If you'd like to loop sections, or change the tempo while still playing along with Dan you can do it all here!
Before You Start...
Ready to move on? Remember to check out every lesson in this unit first – then try the next unit...
Unit 3 | Three Note Per String
This unit takes things up a level - getting into wider stretches and economy picking with a really useful new scale shape.