3-6 · Horizontal Pentatonic Movement 1: Playing Along One String

In 3-1 we played the minor pentatonic scale along a single string, but only far enough to see its interval structure: the 3-2-2-3-2 pattern of gaps, with the root sitting at the upper note of the isolated two-fret span. We used that view to understand the intervals and then moved on to shapes.

What we haven't done is treat one string as a way to get around the neck. That is what this lesson is for. By the end of it, you will have three ways to move through the scale (vertically in position, diagonally along stacks or rectangles, and horizontally along one string), and, importantly, you will have a way to switch between them at any note.

Every span belongs to a shape

Each pair of neighboring notes on a single string is one string of a rectangle or a stack. It helps to have names for those strings, so for the length of this lesson: a rectangle has an upper string U and a lower string L, and a stack has a top string T, a middle string M, and a bottom string B. The letters aren't worth memorizing. We won't use them outside this module.

The isolated two-fret span is M, the middle of a stack, with the root as its upper note. The two neighboring two-fret spans are T and B, the top of one stack and the bottom of the next stack up, which is exactly why they sit side by side. Of the two three-fret spans, the one below M is L, and the other is U.

The highway and its exits

Think of the single-string pattern as a highway. It covers a huge range of the neck in a hurry, but a highway is only useful if you can get off it, and each of those five spans is an exit.

At T you step down into the stack below you. At B you step up into the stack above, which puts you on the same diagonal pathway as T but in a different in-position pattern. At M you are already in the middle of a stack. At U there is a rectangle hanging down from the string, and at L the rectangle is above it.

From any of those, you can stay in position by alternating rectangles and stacks, or take the diagonal pathway from 3-5. It works in reverse too: any string of any rectangle or stack is an on-ramp back onto a single string.

Memorize this: Every two-note span along a single string is one string of a rectangle or a stack. That makes every note on the string a place where you can stop moving horizontally and switch to in-position or diagonal movement, and every note inside a shape a place where you can rejoin a string.

A note on bends while we are here. A whole-step bend works from the upper note on either string of a rectangle, and from the top note of a stack. Those are the most commonly used bends inside the scale. The other two upper notes in the stack can be bent a minor third, which sounds good too.

Exercise 3-8: Pick a string and a root and set up a drone. Play freely up and down the string inside the scale, using more than one finger and adding slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and bends. Keep track of where you are in the pattern of intervals — the two neighboring two-fret spans, the isolated one, and the two three-fret spans. Once that feels comfortable, notice the shape that intersects the string at each position as you pass through it, particularly when you pause or lean on a note. Then start taking the exits: stop moving horizontally, switch to the in-position pattern or the diagonal, and rejoin the string somewhere else. Make a game of it, and use all five off-ramps. If you get lost, go back to your root and start again.