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Master video playlist mapped. Ready for batch offline download to media/videos/improv101-4-4.mp4.
Add a third way to move: horizontally. After diagonal (stack to stack) and vertical (rectangle to stack) motion, this lesson maps the whole pentatonic scale along a single string, with landmarks for spotting the root in both the major and minor shapes. You'll practice it over the E7, A7, and D7 vamps, then learn the three points where the one-string pattern intersects a stack — the spots where you can slip between horizontal and position playing and skate across the neck without ever leaving the scale.
What follows is this lesson’s section of the Course Guide — you can read it here or in the full guide →
The major and minor pentatonic scales share the same sequence of intervals, but each treats a different note as the root. When played on one string, each scale is a sequence of major seconds and minor thirds.
Here is the minor pentatonic scale on one string:
and here is the major pentatonic scale:
Notice that in each scale, there are three major second (two-fret) intervals, two that are next to each other and one that is on its own.
Memorize this: When the pentatonic scale is played on one string, the minor pentatonic root is the upper note of the isolated major second interval. The major pentatonic root is the lowest note of the adjacent major seconds.
Exercise 1: Practice playing the major pentatonic scale on one string, keeping track of the root location and playing all the way from the nut to your highest fret and back.
Exercise 2: Repeat exercise 1 with the minor pentatonic scale.
Exercises 3-36: Repeat exercises 1 and 2 over one of the backing tracks from the previous modules. That will help you hear mistakes more easily. By using all three backing tracks, major and minor, and all six strings, there are 36 exercises to try!
Exercises 37-72: Repeat exercises 1-36, but play melodically.
Recognizing the positions of the major second intervals will allow us to connect pentatonic stacks to the one-string version of the scale. The isolated major second interval runs through the middle of a stack, and the adjacent major seconds connect two stacks diagonally.
Here are the stack connections for the major pentatonic scale, ignoring the warp:
and for the minor pentatonic scale:
Note that we can use our knowledge of these transitions to switch in or out of single-string playing any time we want to.
Exercise 73: Start by improvising over a backing track using a single string. When you feel like it, move into a stack at one of the intersection points. Then, return to playing on the original string and move to a different stack. When you switch to in-position playing, feel free to alternate stacks and rectangles vertically to access the full six-string pentatonic forms.
Exercise 74: Play primarily on one string at a time, using the stack connections to switch to a different string every now and then.
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