Minor scale pattern12/23/2023 ![]() Where Does the Minor Pentatonic Scale Come From? Hopefully from these two examples, you can now play every possible minor scale on guitar. Just move the pattern up to the correct starting note. So, we can use this pattern to play any natural minor scale that we want. All we have done is move the scale horizontally on the neck, to change the note we start from. If you look at the A minor scale diagram, you can see that the scale shape for A minor and C minor is exactly the same. Guitar tab to play a 3NPS C minor scale on guitar. Here is a guitar tab showing which frets to play: The notes in a C minor scale, arranged using the 3NPS system. Here is a neck diagram showing how we can play those notes using a 3NPS scale: If you look at the above table where we had all the notes from all minor scales, you can see that in a scale of C minor, we have the following notes: Using these fingers will make the scale much easier to play. When using the above 3nps minor scale, I recommend you use the following fingers: A full treatise on all the ways we can play an A minor scale is a lesson for another – make sure you’re subscribed so that you can get updates! Note: this is one possible way of many to play an A minor scale on guitar. If you reference the above table, you can see that the A minor scale contains the following notes:Īnd we can arrange them on the guitar neck, using 3 notes per string, in the following way:ģ Note Per String A minor scale neck diagram.Īnd here is a guitar tab of the above scale: It’s also the system I advise students to learn – I don’t see any benefit from bothering with the CAGED system for scales. So that is the system that we are going to use in the rest of the article. Easier to navigate between scale shapes.The two main systems that are used are CAGED and 3 Note Per String (sometimes abbreviated to 3NPS).Ī full comparison of CAGED and 3NPS is an article for another day, but I prefer to use the 3NPS system because it is: When it comes to playing minor scales, or any scale, on guitar, there are several “systems” we can use for organising the notes on the guitar neck. ![]() Should You Use 3 Note Per String Or CAGED Minor Scales? If we write out the natural minor scale around the circle of fifths, we can see this clearly: So, any two keys that are next to each other on the circle of fifths will differ by a single flat / sharp. The circle of fifths puts the keys in order of similarity. In music theory, two keys are considered similar if they contain a similar amount of sharps or flats. ![]() When looking at minor scales in different keys, it can be useful to compare them using the circle of fifths. We’ll look at some examples of this scale on guitar in just a minute, but first let’s talk about minor scales in general. The minor scale has the following intervals:Īnd if we were to look at this scale in the key of A, creating an A minor scale, we would get the following notes: Now that we have the simple answer out of the way, let’s dive a little deeper into minor scales, what they are and how we can use them in our guitar playing.Īs we initially stated, a minor scale is any scale with a b3 scale degree. This is the E natural minor scale (Aeolian mode) on guitar. The natural minor scale has the following intervals:Īnd can be played on guitar using the following 3 note per string scale (example in E minor): If you’re looking into minor scales for the guitar, you are probably looking for the natural minor scale, sometimes called the Aeolian mode. Here’s the fast answer: A minor scale is any scale containing the b3 scale degree.
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