 Hello everyone and welcome to Black Star Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MGRmusic.com and in this video we're going to learn the remaining four shapes out of the five shapes of the minor pentatonic scale. If you haven't already learned the first shape please check out the video on the Black Star YouTube channel which details this shape. All of the notes and the theory from that video are transferable to this video and what we're going to learn today. All of the tones you're hearing in this video are coming from the Black Star IDCore V3 which is mic'd with the Luit Audio LCT 440 condenser mic. The amp is set on the clean bright voice with the ISF all the way to the American side. So in the video where we talked about the first shape of the scale I mentioned that the pentatonic scale is made up from just five notes. So to keep this consistent with that video we're going to talk about these shapes in the key of A minor today. So as a refresher the notes we're going to be using are A, C, D and E and G. We also referred to these by their interval numbers which is 1, flat 3, 4, 5 and flat 7. Once we've learned all four of these additional shapes I'm going to show you a little method you guys can use to quickly map out the position of each of the subsequent shapes all around the fretboard. The reason this is useful is when you start to build your lead guitar vocabulary and you go into playing more complicated solos you want to break away from this first position box. It's super easy to get stuck in this position as a new player but all of your favorite guitar players if you watch them play they're probably flying around the fretboard and playing notes all over the place. So having the ability and the knowledge on how to break out of that first pentatonic box is very useful and it will give a lot of benefit to you as you start to develop your own lead guitar skills. So we're going to start off by learning the shapes and then like I said I'll show you a quick method you can use to put them all together and find them very quickly. So here's the second shape so we're going to be playing 8 and 10 on the low E string, 7 and 10 on the A and D strings, 7 and 9 on the G and 8 and 10 on the B and E. So here's the second shape ascending and descending. The third shape now we're going to start off by playing 10 and 12 on the E, A and D strings 9 and 12 on the G, 10 and 13 on the B and 10 and 12 on the E. So here's the third shape ascending and descending. Fourth shape now we're starting on the 12th fret of the low E string so it's 12 and 15 on the E and A, 12 and 14 on the D and G, 13, 15 on the B and 12, 15 on the E. So here's the fourth shape ascending and descending. And finally the fifth shape we're going to be starting up here on the 15th so we're playing 15 and 17 on the E and the A, 14 and 17 on the D and G and 15 and 17 on the B and E. So here's the fifth shape of the pentatonic scale ascending and descending. Now each of those minor pentatonic scales are directly related so here is where the little tip comes in. Once you've learned all five of those shapes you need to start putting them together and as you start to build different lead guitar solos the ability to mix shapes will be very very useful in moving around the fretboard. So in order to understand how these things fit together we first need to think about those five notes once more A, C, D, E and G. Now you just saw me play a couple of different scale shapes moving from the 8th fret right up to the 15th and 17th frets so I covered quite a lot of ground there but I was still just playing five notes. Every note you hear there was an A, a C, a D, a G or an E so this is why minor pentatonic scales are great because not only do they allow you to move on the fretboard but they're also great for your fretboard mapping knowledge just by knowing that that's simply five notes. I now know those five notes all over the guitar when I understand how octaves work I can then map out the same shapes in higher registers for instance the fifth fret is an A note as is the 17th fret so I could actually take that first shape I learned last week move it up an octave and play the same shape from the 17th fret. Now the hard part is learning how to remember these shapes and where they all start now A is a great key to start in because it's quite easy to map the fretboard in the key of A minor obviously as you move this into different keys you're going to face different challenges but the same principles will apply so A minor is a great place to start so let's once again take those five notes A, C, D and G. Once you've learned the pentatonic shapes so the form of each of the shapes so first the second the third fourth and the fifth learn them as patterns then you need to apply them based on their position to the root of the key so that's this first position first note this A note here is almost like my home note this is where it all starts and this is the point that we should relate everything back to I think when you're learning scales and you're learning mapping on the fretboard it's really good to have a home point to pull everything back to so once I've memorized all five of my shapes I now need to lay them out in a way that they're all relative to this first note so here's a little tip which is great for speeding this up if we take those five notes A, C, D, E and G and I lay them out along the low E string A, C, D, E and G what I've now done is I've actually given myself a starting point for each of my five scale shapes so as long as I know what the five notes are for whatever key that I'm playing the minor pentatonic scale in I can lay those out on one string the low E string and those are the starting points for each of my shapes now the great thing is because this is only five notes what we're essentially doing is each time we play a new shape we're playing the same five notes but we're stacking them from the next note in the scale so for instance the first shape A, C, D, E, G that's from the one one flat three four five flat seven that's the first five notes of the first shape if I start from the eighth fret what I'm actually doing is I'm playing the same notes but I'm starting with a C so I'm playing C, D, E, G and A so now I'm just playing flat three four five flat seven one playing the same notes though my third shape I start from a D so I'm going D, E, G, A, C so I'm doing exactly the same thing but I'm starting from the fourth note of the scale so I'm doing four five flat seven one flat three as you can imagine the fifth shape now is the same thing but I'm starting from an E note so it's E, G, A, C, D and the fifth shape I'm starting from a G so it's G, A, C, D and E so each of the subsequent shapes starts from the next note in the scale so as long as you know what those five notes are you can very easily move them around now because I know that the fifth note of the scale which is my flat seven is a G I can also take that fifth shape that I learned and I can put it here from this G so this allows me to not only go above my first shape pentatonic but also below now again going below the pentatonic shape is easier in certain keys than others A it kind of works in because I'm quite low down the fretboard but if I'm in a key like C for instance where I'm playing C minor from the eighth fret I've got a lot of room this side and I also have a lot of room this side so I can extend my pentatonic up and also backwards thinking this like a rolling sort of note scale like a piano it just keeps going I can infinitely extend my shape either direction as long as my fretboard allows it so certain guitars if you've got 21 frets or 24 frets you may find you lose a couple of notes from one shape it's just one of those things the different guitars will give you different capabilities so when you're practicing this kind of thing make sure you know the notes on the fretboard refer to the fretboard diagram in the written part of this which is on the black star website look at the notes for whatever key you're playing in I'll write this up for you in A minor so you can see it laid out the way we've talked about it and then try and apply this principle to some other keys as well take a minor pentatonic scale in whatever key you want learn what the five notes are lay those out along one string and there are your five starting positions for each of the five pentatonic shapes so there you go there is an overview of all five of the minor pentatonic shapes and a little trick you guys can use to quickly find them all around the guitar so hopefully that really starts to open up the fretboard for you now and as you start to dig deeper into your lead guitar playing these tips will help you expand beyond that first pentatonic shape thank you guys so much for watching hope you've enjoyed this lesson let us know down below in the comments what you thought how you've gotten on with this and if there are any other topics you'd like to see us talk about please put them down below as well don't forget to check out black star amplification on youtube for more free lessons just like this and if you're looking for a guitar teacher please head to mgrmusic.com check out the music teacher database there are a great network of teachers all around the country waiting to help you guys out thanks so much for watching and i'll see you soon