5 Pentatonic Exercises You Must Know

We all know that the pentatonic scales hold the key to unlocking a rather large chunk of the fretboard. In fact, many players don't ever seem to need anymore than a deep knowledge of these incredible scales!

In this blog post and video I will take you through 5 incredible pentatonic exercises that you can use not only to improve your speed, chops and technique but also use in your own improvisation, as demonstrated at the very start of the video! Let's get into it!

The video

First up, here is the video lesson from YouTube that we're working with in today's blog post. You can get the backing track that I'm using at the start of the video right here!

Exercise 1

Our first exercise is called the "3 Up, 1 Down" pentatonic exercise, and we're focusing it on the A minor pentatonic box 1. This exercise is an absolute classic, and is covered in many of our beginners lead guitar courses in the Club! If you've never played a sequence before, the key thing is to spot the start and end of the main pattern, and then how it repeats. So here we go down the pentatonic shape first 3 strings, then move back 1 string and start the sequence again from there. Let's take a look at the tab and the pentatonic diagram for this sequence:

Exercise 2

Our second exercise can be called "Tetratonics", which is a 4 note grouping rather than 5. The naming conventions aside, this is a great exercise to play quickly across the neck. You are essentially picking the b7th, root, b3rd and 4th out from the pentatonic and spreading that across the neck. This is a great way to quickly get from low to high, and is a technique used by players like Paul Gilbert. use the tab and scale diagram to help you visualise how this exercise is spread across box 5, 1 and 2 in A minor:

Exercise 3

Our third sequence is a "descending sequence in 5's", which basically means that we go down 5 notes in the scale, before coming back up and then repeating the next 5 notes. Once again, when working with sequences you have find these patterns to help you understand the line you are trying to play. This particular sequence works through box 5, 4 and 3 and is similar to something Joe Bonamassa might choose to play, so pretty challenging! Once again, use the tab and diagram below to visualise this scale shape within the pattern itself:

Exercise 4

Our penultimate exercise is the "Octave Pentatonics", and it's a pretty challenging one, especially if you've never played octaves before! First up I would highly recommend getting to grips with what octaves are and how to play the shapes… Here's a very cool map of the octaves on the guitar:

As for this particular exercise, we are using the octave shapes to work through the Pentatonic Box 1 in A minor. I would recommend watching predominantly your first finger, to visualise the scale, and then letting the little or third finger make up the rest of the shape. Here's the tab for you:

Exercise 5

Our final exercise is potentially the most challenging, as we're using "Pentatonic Thirds". This simply means that as we work through the scale shape, we are harmonising each note with the note a pentatonic third up (2 notes up in the scale). This gives us a very cool sound, and you only really need to learn a few shapes for it! The pentatonic patterns are box 5, 1 and 2, which you can see below and should be visualised as you work through this exercise:

Practice time!

There we have it, 5 awesome exercises for you to sink your teeth into. As with any form of exercise on the guitar, practice and commitment are the key. Take one of these exercises and practice it every day for the month… You'll be amazed how fluid and speedy you'll be able to get it!