Pentatonic Fluency

[Bill T]

I have been going through the different BG courses for a second time after it’s been close to a year since the first time. It made such an impact on my some 35 years of playing that I literally went and bought the membership again.

I wanted to share the importance of spending a good amount of time on the Pentatonic Fluency course. To me I find I can use it for just about any music, minor or major and it just works.

I put on a song I like or backing track and get out my Pentatonic charts. Mostly memorized at this point but I still have a cheat sheet I made that I keep on the music stand.

Once I find the key the music is in on the low E string using my ear I start the patterns. If it doesn’t sound right in the minor position I simply switch to the major Pentatonic position and it’s perfect every time.

The course explains, as many of you know exactly how we use the same pattern for major as minor, just move your pinkie to the root note and play the pattern to your left in stead of your right.

I wanted to share the importance of that course especially. I rarely even use the 7 major patterns even though I really should get better at them too. At my point in life I’m just enjoying what makes me happy, with the music I like and I think that’s the point!

I did make a one page cheat sheet which is just a screen shot of each Pentatonic pattern fit onto one page. I find it’s perfect to be able to have a blast improvising over backing tracks before you even have them all memorized.

Start with top left pattern then the next pattern always starts where the last one ended on low E string.

One last thing. Don’t over look the importance of the diagonal Pentatonic and how to use it within the other patterns. I missed that the first time I went through the course a year ago and it’s giving me so much more interesting sounds and styles to work with now and an amazing trip up the guitar neck. Hope this helps. Enjoy!