Learn how to play three fun and easy pentatonic sequences that can be made into licks with Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman, aka Uncle D. All of these patterns are in the key of E, but can easily be transposed into other keys. So be sure to get the tabs to go along with the video instruction and you will be on your way to adding killer ascending pentatonic sequences into your playing.
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing this video lesson and today I want to show you three ideas for ascending pentatonic sequences.
So right now, Guitar Control is giving away this really awesome daily practice routine to improve your lead guitar chops. This was put together by our very own Silvio Gazquez, a two-time Guitar Idle finalist. This routine covers the four main concepts that are necessary for lead guitar; alternate picking, legato, sweep picking and tapping. All the tabs and exercises are all included in this free ebook and there’s a link in the description where you can get yours.
So be sure to click on the link in the description of the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at these.
Ascending Pentatonic Sequence-1
All right, so all three of these examples are all in the key of E minor, but they’re all movable shapes and they’re all based out of the your number one box pattern of the minor pentatonic. So in E we’ve got; 12, 15, 12, 14, 12, 14, 12, 14, 12, 15, 12 and 15… So the very first one here is made up of a sequence of six notes so we’re going to start here on the 12th fret of the low E string with your first finger and we’re going to pick and do a hammer-on to the 15th fret and pull back off to 12 and then hammer back to 15. So one, two, three, four and then for note five we go to the 12th fret of the A string and then back to the 15th fret of the low E string… And the sequence just repeats as you go across the strings. So if you know you think about that pattern that’s based on the E and the A string. So now we’re just going to start that process over again, but now we’ll start on the A string and obviously the frets will be different here so we go 12 hammer to 14 pull off to
12, hammer to 14 and back to the 12th fret of the D string and back to the 14th fret of the A string and then you would just continue the process, so you start on the D string, same frets as for the A string and then the G string and now when we go to the B string we have to go back to the 12 and 15. So if you were going to try to use this idea for a lick you might not want to play through the entire sequence. You might just use a section of it to lead into something else… something like that.
Ascending Pentatonic Sequence-2
All right so the next we’re going to look at is that you can play this just as it is, it’s a good exercise for really knowing the scale, but also for with pentatonic licks there’s a lot of stuff where you’re rolling, you know on the same fret from one string to the other i.e. Angus Young does a lot of stuff like that. So the sequence again you can do it in whatever key, but here we’re doing it in E. So I just start off by play the 12th fret on the E string and I’m going to roll up and do the 12th fret on the A string… Now we’re going to go to the 14th fret of the A string same fret of the low E… And now we’re going to just continue that process along. So this is like a grouping of four; one, two, three, four. So now we’re going to do the same thing, but we’re going to start on the A string, it’ll be between the A and the D string. So now we’re to since we’re both notes are on the 12th fret and the 14th fret we can roll both of our fingers. So we’re going to roll that at first finger for the 12s and then your third finger for the 14s. Now you just continue the process now you’d start on the D string to the G string, again both since they’re the 12th and 14th frets so you can just roll like that. And then the G to the B string so it’s going to be 12 and then 15 on the B string back to 14 on the G string and then to the B and high E 12 and 12 and 15 and 15… Now again, you may not necessarily do that whole thing, but you certainly do parts of it. There’s so many times where you’re doing stuff where you’re doing that roll technique that you really want to you know work with that and this is a good way to do it and it also breaks up the pentatonic scale so that you don’t have to play it sequentially in order to be able to play it… Or you could do it the other way so we do the 12 on the E and the A and then 15 on the E 14 on the A and so on and so forth…
Ascending Pentatonic Sequence-3
All right and then the last one to look at here is this one and it’s a grouping of five notes this time. So we’re going to start here and again we’re in E Minor. So we’re going to start here on the 12th fret and we’re going to pick and do a hammer-on to 15 and then follow that with 12 on the A string and then back to 12 hammer to 15 on the E string. So now again we’re just going to continue that sequence. So now we’re going to start on the A string. So 12 hammer to 14 and then the 12th fret on the D string back to the 12th fret of the A string and then hammer it again… so on and so forth. So now to the D to the G string, G to the B string and then B to the high E string… So again you may not use that whole thing. You could combine this with the other ones. With all three of these together you have multiple different ways you could put them together to kind of make your own licks out of it.
Conclusion
All right, so there you have it, three not too terribly difficult ascending pentatonic sequence ideas. So if you like this lesson be sure to give me a thumbs up and leave a comment down below if you have any questions about this or other guitar related topics. If you’ve not already done so please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss any of the content that we upload throughout the week. Well that is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
