The Minor Pentatonic Scale

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                        The Minor Pentatonic Scale: What’s In The Box?

   Just about every guitar player has heard of the Minor Pentatonic Scale. It lends
itself nicely to the guitar, and falls neatly on the fretboard in box patterns. The most
widely known of these patterns is the Box 1 Position. This is a great place to start
when it’s time to tackle some lead playing.

              Here is what the Box 1 pattern looks like on the fretboard:

   That’s the fat low E string on the bottom, and the high e string on the top. It
spans a fret 4 area with easy access to all the notes. The root note of the scale is
derived by the first note of the pattern on the 6th string. The root notes are shown
in red.

   In the key of E Minor this box would start at the 12th fret, and extend to the 15th
fret.    It’s important to remind us that our root note is on the sixth string, and that
this pattern is movable. If we needed the key of A we would start this Box 1 at the
5th fret, G at the 3rd fret, and so on.

   One last obvious thing to note is that this is a minor scale. It sounds good over
some major key progressions, especially in blues, but will always sound good over a
minor chord progression in the same key.

                                     Special Box Characteristics

   Now there are some things about this position that need to be pointed out. First,
and most obvious is that the red notes are the root notes. The second is that this
pattern covers 2 octaves. In the key of E this would mean it runs E-G-A-B-D, and
then starts over again E-G-A-B-D.

                           Here is the first octave played in order 1-6:

                           Here is the second octave played in order 1-6:

   One thing to note here are that we start, and end on a root note.   Another is that
we play the notes in order. Going In order makes it sound musical, or more
specifically like a scale! Also notice that on the second octave once we finish on the
root note there is one note left in the pattern. This is the second note of the scale
repeated. This is worth noting because the second octave of the pattern ends one
note prior to this note, and when we end on this note the scale will sound
unresolved, or unfinished.

   I hope you found this breakdown of the Box 1 position useful. Go ahead, and
give it try over some backing tracks. The only limit is your own creativity!