Guitar level 1 

Em pentatonic scale - 2 octaves

 The pentatonic scale is a very interesting scale:

• It has 5 notes per octave (hence its name). 

• It is perhaps the oldest scale known to man - with records dating back about 5000 years in Chinese culture

• The black notes on the piano form a pentatonic scale

• It is a subset of the major scale

• It is also a subset of the blues scale

• It is widely used in jazz, rock and pop music as an improvisation scale

Some well known pieces which are based on the pentatonic scale include: 

• Money for nothin', by Dire Straits

• We didn't start the fire, by Billy Joel

The pentatonic scale is an excellent scale to use to begin improvising. Try it over the chords Em G repeated.

Again, as with the C scale, the fretts are the numbers below without circles.

The numbers in circles are the string numbers. (The thickest string is 6).