Single octave

Scales contain only a few notes, but every note appears in many locations on the fretboard, so even a scale with only five notes meanders all over the fretboard.

I can play the note E in thirteen distinct locations in five different octaves on my favorite guitar!

This is why we tend to think about shapes when memorizing scales and chords. Shapes help our tiny pea brains remember where to find the notes.

Please realize, though, that each note evokes a single mood/feeling/color/taste over a given chord or chord progression. This is true no matter which octave of the note you play. One E evokes the same mood/feeling/color/taste as any other E, even if one is double or even quadruple the pitch of the other.

Solos generate excitement and interest as they ascend or descend into different octaves, but the function and feeling/color/taste of each note within each octave stays the same. Apples come in all different shapes, sizes, and flavors, but they never taste like bananas.

Five tones

Am pentatonic is the five notes A, C, D, E, and G. PERIOD. That’s all there is.

Each of these notes evokes a certain feeling over a Blues in «A Major» and a slightly different feeling over «A minor».

Let’s first focus on just one location for each of those five notes:

The shape resembles a frying pan. I think of the “pan” as having the opening on top, so the root note A is the “heel” at the bottom of the pan, and E is at the end of the handle.

The note A obviously sounds great over A7: it’s the root of the underlying chord. If you play any other note over A7, it won’t sound quite as consonant.

E sounds almost as consonant, but different somehow. E over AMaj adds a bit of … salty-sweetness (it sounds slightly Celtic to my ears). The remaining notes have different qualities.

In order to create great sounds, whether an off-the-cuff solo or a pre-composed melody, you must viscerally learn how notes sound over different chords. You must KNOW how it will sound before you play it!

Playing with intent

No written description can possibly teach sounds. Everyone has to learn for themselves how notes sound in different contexts, by practicing on their guitar.

If you can’t hear it in your head first, you don’t own it and probably shouldn’t be playing it.

– Random YouTuber

As obvious as this seems: unless you KNOW what note you’re playing, you’ll never learn to anticipate how it will sound.

The sound of each note depends on context. In particular, the notes of the minor pentatonic scale sound different over a minor i chord than they do over a major I chord. Not better or worse, just different.

We still aren’t creating complete sentences or stories with this exercise, as in a real solo, because we’ve intentionally limited ourselves to just the five specific notes in a single octave over a single chord. Over the course of this chapter, we’ll start adding other colors to the palette and learn how to play over an entire progression, not just a single chord.

That feeling of power from this exercise comes from playing with intent. You are producing the sounds you want to make, not some canned lick you pulled off the internet.

Have fun!