Chords for Pentatonic Scale Shredding | How To Come Up With Cool Licks!

What's up YouTube community, Bernth here back with another lesson video for you! _
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_ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ First of all it's great to see the channel growing so quickly, [Ab] welcome to all new subscribers and
thanks a lot for all the comments you leave below the videos, [D] it's really great to see a positive
learning environment developing on here [G] and it's also a lot of [B] fun for me personally to dig very
deep into the different lesson topics every week with you!
Before we start a really big thank you
also [C] goes out to all new members of my shred guitar community [E] over at Patreon, I release all
those video lessons a little bit earlier there and also add [G] the guitar pro files, practice backing
tracks and pdf tab [C] sheets.
But let's get into this week's lesson topic right now, our main focus is
the pentatonic scale and how to compose some fast and [A] creative shred licks in this context.
Here's
the practical example I recorded for you this week. _
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[C] So the pentatonic scale is often ignored
by advanced or even intermediate players because it's often considered a beginner scale.
It only
consists out of five notes while the popular modes or common shred guitar scales like harmonic minor,
melodic minor or phrygian dominant for example consist out of seven notes hence the name
heptatonic scales.
That kind of system offers more [F] possibilities for creative lick writing and
these scales are almost exclusively played as three note per string patterns.
That way we can easily
come up with some very fast licks in triplets like we already discussed on this channel like this one
for example. _
[A] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [E] _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ Contrary to that style of licks most [Ab] players hear something like that in their head when
the word pentatonic is [E] mentioned. _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ [G] _ So this scale is often reduced to these cliche licks that we all
started out with I guess and [Eb] not often used in a shred guitar context.
The first interesting thing
you can do here is extend the usual two note per string [Cm] pattern to a three note per string pattern
for this scale.
Since we only have five notes [F] total here to work with in different octaves there will
be quite some stretching involved to get these three note per string shapes but we get a pretty
unique sound that way since it combines the playing approach of heptatonic scales with the sound of
the pentatonic scale.
This is actually the basic principle I used to construct the lick for this
so here's that approach demonstrated in the A minor pentatonic scale.
This is the classic two
note per string pattern [A] I'm sure you're familiar with already.
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[Am] _ _ _ [D] _ [Em] _ _ _ [Am] _
_ _ [Gb] For the lick I was using the exact
same notes but I was [C] distributing them in a different way.
Here's the [A] pattern up to the D string
A C [D] D [E] E G [A] A [D] C D [E] E _
_ So exactly the same [A] as playing A C [D] D [E] E G [Am] A [D] C D [E] E.
_ Just more interesting possibilities for phrasing
since [C] it's three notes per string [A] now.
Once again A [C] C [D] D E [G] G [Am]
A C [E] D E. _ _ _
Speeding up two note per
string phrases is actually pretty hard since you can't really form patterns that easily [Am] and it
often ends with uninspired legato licks like that one for example I'm sure you're familiar with it. _ _
[A] _ _ There are also [C] some players that almost focus on this scale completely and play super [Bb] fast and
also original phrases also with the two notes per string approach but I was never a huge fan [N] of
that personally as always it's just a matter of taste.
So to quickly reconstruct the composition
process of the lick this morning I was searching for a way to connect each scale position on each
string and I came up with this kind of [E] system. _ _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ That sounds pretty nice and allows me to extend
[C] the phrase a little bit so short patterns like that always sound a bit better [Am] than just running
up and down the scale like that for example. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Gb] _ The next approach I [E] had in mind was extending the
shape even further than three notes per string by adding tapped notes but I still limited myself
to the notes I have in the A minor pentatonic scale so no additional notes are allowed for
this example.
Normally I would maybe add the major sixth for a little dorian flavor, the raised seventh
scale degree [Eb] for a harmonic minor touch or some other [F] harmonic extensions but for this demonstration
I wanted to limit myself intentionally to show you a pure pentatonic approach so to say.
So when I
arrived at the D string I introduced some tapping since the patterns were [B] repeated and already used
a couple of times.
I'm playing the notes C, D [C] and E up here on the D string_
_ _ [E] _ _ _
[D] _ [E] _ _ and I was extending this pattern with [F] the notes G, A and C once [D] again one octave higher. _
_ _ _ [Abm] That sounds
quite interesting because a full octave is covered on one string and when you speed it up it sounds
really really cool in my opinion.
So after the short tapping section on the D string I wanted
to add another interesting layer by also including a pull-off to the G string next.
The first pattern
interestingly starts with a group of quintuplets since we only have five notes here before we move
[E] to the full six note _ phrases_
[G] _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _ [A] _ _ _
[E] _ So the first pattern is already quite challenging and then I'm moving up to tapping C, D and E _ _ _
and I'm always [Eb] pulling off to the open G string that is also a part of the A minor pentatonic
scale.
Whenever you include pull-off phrases in your guitar solo on any string you also need to
make sure that the open string is part of the harmonic context you're actually playing in.
Then I ended the phrase with a pretty cool [Ab] bend and that's where I break the pentatonic
barrier a little bit by bending up to the major second [D] B here [E] and _ _ I'm adding G here on [Db] top _
for a [A] minor sixth interval bend _ [Em] _ _ _
_ _ [F] also including a little bit of tremolo action right here.
For some
extra nice dissonance you can also play the open B string for [B] this bend, _ that's what I did with the
slow example that I played in the beginning, [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
it sounds pretty [Gb] cool.
So that was just a super quick
introduction to my [C] mindset concerning the composition of shred guitar licks in the
pentatonic scale.
[G] I really like to use these so-called stretch pentatonic shapes for my solos
now and then and [E] as soon as you extend the usual two note per string [Gb] shapes you end up with some
really cool possibilities.
[Em] _ _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] If you think creatively and work with a lot of different techniques and
patterns you will come up with some [C] great stuff for sure.
The practice backing track for this
lick, the guitar pro files for the lesson and [Am] the pdf tab sheets are online on patreon for our
members.
Remember to subscribe [Dm] on here to get notified for the weekly guitar lessons on [E] here
with me, leave a like if you enjoyed the video or if you learned something new [C] and a comment in case
you have any question that I could answer for you.
Thanks [Db] a lot for tuning in today and I will [Em] see you
in the next lesson, all the best and have fun [D] practicing! _ _ _ _ _
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