Pentatonic gear shifts

In this video, I explain my recent epiphany about shifting pentatonic shapes in order to solo melodically over chord changes. This technique has been a game-changer for me, and it took hundreds of animation steps to try to make it clear.

I'm excited about this one!

The 14-page PDF written version of the lesson is available above. Silver members can read it on this page too, with a backing track player built into each of the two worked examples — D - A - Bm - G and "Little Wing" — so you can watch the scale shift with the chords while you play over them.

Pentatonic Gear Shifts: A New Method for Soloing Over Chord Changes

Introduction

Improvising a solo over chord changes is challenging. The most effective solos emphasize chord tones, and to do that, you have to know what chord is playing, what notes would sound good to emphasize over each chord, and what scale(s) to use around the target notes. For intermediate players, that’s often too much to keep in working memory at one time.

The key to freeing up your working memory is to think about chords and scales at the right level of abstraction and with the right mental models. Some ways of thinking about scales and chords are much simpler and easier to visualize than others.

This lesson is about a visualization technique that makes it easier to change scales on the fly and find target notes for every chord in a progression. This technique centers around shifting pentatonic scale shapes from one string set to another, making it surprisingly easy to play melodically over chord changes even if your knowledge of music theory is limited.

In this lesson, I'll explain:

• How this technique works
• Why it's effective
• How to apply it to real chord progressions
• How to use it to find target notes to create memorable solos

This visualization method transformed my approach to melodic soloing over chord changes, and I believe it can do the same for you.

The Big Picture: Two approaches to soloing over chord changes

Before diving into the details, let's take a high-level look at the two most commonly used approaches guitarists use when learning to solo over chord changes. It’s important to note that these approaches can be blended together, and good players are always guided by their ears. I am not suggesting that any specific players used these exact methods or think about the fretboard in exactly these ways, but I am suggesting that many of the note choices in classic solos are economically explained by these approaches.

Approach 1: Single-scale approach

Many guitarists base their solos on a single baseline scale (typically major or minor pentatonic or one of the major scale modes), and they add target notes to highlight chord changes. This is what most people think of as chord tone soloing. Classic solos like “Stairway to Heaven” and “Hotel California” use this approach. Jimmy Page’s “Stairway” solo is based on the Am pentatonic scale, but he selectively targets F notes (which are not in the scale) over F major chords. Similarly, Don Felder and Joe Walsh both use the Bm pentatonic scale plus out-of-scale chord tone targets in their “Hotel California” solos.

Usually, guitar players solo this way by learning to visualize triads across the entire fingerboard. And then, while playing a pentatonic scale, they can quickly find the root of chord near their fingers, visualize a triad around it, and choose one of those notes to highlight.

I have developed an easier way to visualize triad target notes overlaid on the pentatonic scale (or a major scale mode), and that technique is explained in Module 7 of my Fret Science: Improv 101 course. I also have a written lesson describing this approach as applied to the “Little Wing” chord progression. This lesson is not about the single-scale approach.

Approach 2: One-scale-per-chord approach

The one-scale-per-chord method involves switching scales to match each chord in the progression. Many jazz musicians favor this approach, but it works well for a lot of blues-based and rock music as well. If you hear someone talk about playing the Dorian mode over a ii chord and Mixolydian over the V, that is an example of one-scale-per-chord. Jazz players frequently think in terms of modes when using this approach, but as we will see, it also works with pentatonic scales.

A brute force approach to changing scales for each chord would involve finding the root of each chord on the fretboard and using a visualization technique like the CAGED system to place the correct scale shape around the root. My rectangle and stack method for visualizing the pentatonic scale, especially when combined with my hidden in plain sight method for turning the pentatonic scale into a major scale mode, can make this easier, but the method I’m going to show you is much simpler than that.

The one-scale-per-chord method simplified

One of the questions I hear most often from aspiring improvisers is: “What scale should I play over this chord progression?” The beauty of the one-scale-per-chord method is that instead of analyzing the progression as a whole, you can approach it one chord at a time. For many songs, this simple formula works surprisingly well:

• Play a minor pentatonic scale over the minor chords (including more “expensive” chords like m7 and m9).
• Play a major pentatonic scale over the major chords (including chords like maj7, 7, and 9).

Of course, you can’t just play any major or minor pentatonic scale. You have to match the root of the scale to the root of the chord you’re playing over. This might seem challenging because changing scales typically requires finding the new root note and remembering which scale shape fits there (there’s that whole CAGED System thing again). But there's a much simpler way.

The music theory foundation (don't worry, it's simple!)

The major scale contains six pentatonic scales within it:

• Three major pentatonic scales (built on the 1st, 4th, and 5th scale degrees).
• Three minor pentatonic scales (built on the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th scale degrees).

That means that for any key, the six pentatonic scales needed for the one-scale-per-chord approach are already inside the major scale. When you play major pentatonic over major chords and minor pentatonic over minor chords in a progression built from any major scale mode, you're actually playing exactly the right mode for each chord—just five notes at a time.

Let's look at this in the key of C major (C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C). Inside the key, there are three major chords, each with a corresponding major pentatonic scale:

• C, the I chord (C-E-G) → C major pentatonic (C-D-E-G-A)
• F, the IV chord (F-A-C) → F major pentatonic (F-G-A-C-D)
• G, the V chord (G-B-D) → G major pentatonic (G-A-B-D-E)

And there are three minor chords with corresponding minor pentatonic scales:

• Dm, the ii chord (D-F-A) → D minor pentatonic (D-F-G-A-C)
• Em, the iii chord (E-G-B) → E minor pentatonic (E-G-A-B-D)
• Am, the vi chord (A-C-E) → A minor pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G)

Don't worry if you don't follow all the theory—you don't need to know it to use this approach. However, it's worth noticing that these scales come in pairs (one major and one relative minor) that share the exact same notes:

• C major and A minor pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G)
• F major and D minor pentatonic (A-C-D-F-G)
• G major and E minor pentatonic (A-B-D-E-G)

It’s also worth noting that all three notes of each triad can be found inside the corresponding pentatonic scale.

Visualizing pentatonic scales: The rectangle and stack system

To make this approach easy to visualize on the fretboard, I break down the five familiar pentatonic scale shapes into two smaller geometric patterns that I call the rectangle and the stack. You don't need to use this system to benefit from the scale-shifting approach, but it makes visualization and finding target notes much easier.

Here are the basic shapes:

On any instrument with adjacent strings tuned in 4ths, these patterns alternate vertically. They can also be thought of as a single, repeating five-string pattern.

The rectangle and stack are used to play both the major and minor pentatonic scales. The only difference is which note in each pattern is the root of the scale.

With just these patterns, if you can find a root note anywhere on the fretboard, you can place either a rectangle or stack there and build the rest of the pentatonic scale shape around it.

Dealing with the warp

Since the guitar is not tuned entirely in 4ths (the interval between the G and B strings is a major third), we have to be careful when any geometric shape or scale pattern crosses the invisible boundary between the G and B strings. Any time this happens, everything above that line is shifted one fret toward the bridge.

I call this “feature” of the fretboard the warp, after Jon Finn’s coinage “the warp refraction threshold.” Full details of how to think about geometry on the fretboard are beyond the scope of this lesson, but you can get an overview in my YouTube video.

The end result is that all five of the familiar pentatonic fingering patterns are made up of alternating rectangles and stacks. Every one of them is a result of applying the universal pentatonic pattern to the fretboard and adjusting for the warp. In my diagrams, I draw the warp boundary with a dashed red line between the G and B strings. Remember that everything above that dashed line is shifted one fret toward the bridge from where you’d expect it based on the universal pattern.

This rectangle and stack pentatonic system works for any instrument that is tuned in 4ths, so it is easy to extend these patterns for 7- or 8-string guitars, and it’s super easy to apply this method to bass guitar, where you don’t have to worry about the warp at all.

Finding target notes for melodic solos

To create compelling melodies with this system, you need to know where the "juicy" target notes are within each pentatonic scale. The rectangle and stack shapes make this straightforward, because the notes of the major and minor triads are always in the same places inside the corresponding rectangles and stacks.

It’s worth memorizing these patterns, and it may be helpful to notice that the target patterns for major and minor share two notes.

The breakthrough: Shifting scales on the fretboard

There’s one more key insight we need in order to put this into practice. On any fretboard tuned in 4ths, we can place the roots of the six pentatonic scales derived from the major scale into two columns on three adjacent strings, like this:

Notice that the minor roots form one column, and the major roots form another one three frets higher. This works for every key.

My “aha” moment was when I realized that if I played the pentatonic rectangle with the minor and major roots in the “vi - I” position, like this… …not only could I play the major pentatonic scale based on the 1st scale degree by treating the “I” note as the root and the minor pentatonic scale based on the 6th scale degree by treating the “vi” note as the root, but I could also shift the whole rectangle up a string to play the pentatonic scales based on the 2nd and 4th scale degrees:

Or, I could shift the rectangle down a string to play the pentatonic scales based on the 3rd and 5th scale degrees:

And from there, it’s not a very big mental leap to shift the familiar full six-string pentatonic shapes up or down a string, so that in any position, you get three sets of related pentatonic scale shapes that you can use to cover any chords that come from the same major scale.

It can be a lot of mental math to visualize these shifts at first, but if you’re familiar with the five pentatonic patterns and you focus on one rectangle or stack inside a pattern, you’ll quickly be able to figure out which pattern you get when you make a shift.

With this system, you never need to shift more than one string in either direction from your neutral position, but it may be helpful to think of all five patterns as being a cycle.

Applying the system to real chord progressions

Now, you just need to know the function of each chord in the chord progression (i.e., which scale degree each chord is built from). Fortunately, this is easy. Here's a simple method that works for many progressions without requiring deep music theory knowledge:

1. Locate each chord’s root on the fretboard, aligning major roots on one fret and minor roots three frets lower.

That’s it. There’s only one step. Just be mindful of the warp. If your roots fall on both sides, they won’t all line up on one fret.

You’ll get a pattern like this, and you can determine the chord function by position:

Example 1: D - A - Bm - G progression

If we plot out the roots for the progression D - A - Bm - G, we get this:

Based on this arrangement, we would treat:

• D as the I chord
• A as the V chord
• Bm as the vi chord
• G as the IV chord

Since D is the major root on the middle string, we know that all four of these chords come from the D major scale.

To solo over this progression using pentatonic shifting, you would:

1. Start with D major pentatonic as your neutral position (e.g., Form 1 at the 7th fret)
2. Use major triad target notes over the D chord
3. When the chord changes to A, shift down a string set (to Form 3) and continue using major triad target notes
4. For the Bm chord, shift back to the neutral position (Form 1) but use the minor target notes
5. When the chord changes to G, shift up a string set (to Form 4) and return to major triad targets

This approach makes it easy to create melodic solos that highlight the chord changes while using the D major scale, five notes at a time.

Example 2: "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix

Let's apply this approach to a more challenging progression, Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing.” First, we'll determine how the chords relate to each other.

The chord progression is Em - G - Am - Em - Bm - Am - C - G - F - C - D. There’s a B♭m chord that lasts for only one beat. It’s used as a chromatic passing chord between Bm and Am, so we’ll ignore that in our analysis.

If we arrange the chord roots on the fretboard, we get:

There’s a full G/Em cluster, which makes sense since the song is in Em. There’s just one outlier: the F chord.

In “Little Wing,” the F chord is non-diatonic, meaning that it doesn’t fit into the key of the song. It’s a borrowed chord (bII, sometimes called the “Neapolitan” chord in music theory). The theory doesn’t matter for our purposes, but we will need to modify our approach slightly when we get to that chord in our solo.

To improvise over this chord progression:

1. Use your “home” pentatonic position to play over all of the Em and G chords (e.g., start with Form 1 at the 12th fret or Form 4 at the 7th fret).
2. Shift up one string to play over the Am and C chords (Form 4 and Form 2, respectively).
3. Shift down one string to play over the Bm and D chords (Form 3 and Form 1, respectively).

In doing this, you are playing the full E Aeolian mode, five notes at a time.

For the F chord (which doesn't fit in the E minor scale), simply note that it's two semitones lower than the G chord that precedes it. When the chord shifts from G to F, take whatever pattern you're playing and shift it down two frets. Interestingly, this is exactly what Hendrix did in his solo.

One more tidbit of music theory

It’s worth knowing that the trick we’re using to line up chord roots on the fretboard is really just a different way of thinking about the cycle of fifths.

The cycle of fifths is a circular arrangement of chords, keys, or notes, where each time you move one step clockwise, you move up an interval of a perfect fifth (and if you move one step counterclockwise, you move up an interval of a perfect fourth). Often it is drawn with the major chords/keys in one ring and their relative minor chords/keys in another ring, like this:

If you locate the chords of a song in the cycle of fifths, they’ll usually cluster together.

If all of the chords are drawn from the same major scale, you’ll find them all in three neighboring wedges of the circle, and the major scale chord functions are always in the same relative positions.

The three major and three minor chords in a key all appear as neighbors in the cycle-of-fifths chart.

Our fretboard trick for finding the key is just a quick and dirty way of visualizing a section of the cycle of fifths. It works precisely because the guitar is tuned in fourths.

Conclusion

When I discovered it, this system completely transformed my approach to melodic soloing almost overnight. While it might seem like a lot of information to process initially, it becomes quite manageable once you apply it to a few chord progressions. I'm not suggesting you should use this approach for every solo, but it's a powerful technique to add to your repertoire.

The pentatonic shifting system offers several advantages:

• It simplifies the process of finding appropriate scales for a wide variety of chord progressions
• It minimizes the need for memorization by leveraging the fretboard's inherent patterns
• It makes finding target notes easier and more intuitive
• It produces melodic solos that follow chord changes naturally

I invite you to experiment with this technique in your solos. Remember that, like any musical approach, it will become more natural with practice. Soon, you'll find yourself navigating chord changes with confidence and creating more melodic, expressive solos.

If you found this brief guide helpful, be sure to check out the Fret Science: Improv 101 course, where I explore several fretboard visualization and improvisation techniques in greater depth. The course starts with basics and builds step by step, making improvising over chord changes accessible to anyone who can play a melody on guitar.