Major Pentatonic Scale…Easy Guitar Soloing in a Major Key!

Learn to use the major pentatonic scale to play smoking leads in major keys!

The major pentatonic scale is the most commonly used guitar scale when playing a guitar solo in a major key. In this short lesson you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started playing and using the major pentatonic scale in your guitar solos.

Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll learn in this guitar lesson:

0:20 I’ve had lots of guitar players ask about how to play a guitar solo in a major key. In this lesson I’ll show you a simple hack for using your minor pentatonics in a major key as well!

0:55 Major keys and minor keys – what’s the difference? In a minor key it’s common to use the minor pentatonic scale to solo. But this won’t work in a major key. For that we need the major pentatonic scale.

1:25 If you take a minor pentatonic shape and move it down 3 frets it becomes a major pentatonic scale. This is a super handy because you can now use all your minor pentatonic scale patterns to solo in major keys. You can also recycle lots of your favourite pentatonic licks and bends into major pentatonic licks. They won’t always work but often they will.

3:25 I’m going to solo over a chord sequence in the key of D major. For this I can move my D minor pentatonic shape at the 10th fret down 3 frets to the 7th fret and play D major pentatonic scale.

4:51 You can hear how the major pentatonic scale fits great with the chord…sounding melodic and strong. Learn how to decide whether to play in major or minor when you play a solo.

5:23 Can you mix up major pentatonic and minor pentatonic scales on guitar. Yes you can, but it’s good to get the hang of using them seperately first before you try mixing them together.