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Working on this blues scale for my guitar and having fun! For the last eight months I have mostly been working on chords, but after I started playing with the pentatonic scale last week, well the blues scale is just a couple of notes away.

It’s sorta funny, I always thought that chords was the easy way to go to start playing. And I am pretty sure it still is - but I have to admit that this picking out the pentatonic scale and the blues scale is a whole lot of fun.

At this point I am using a pick… I guess what they call a flat pick. No fingerpicking here. Maybe another time. And these scales are pretty darn easy to pick out. Now I do have to give props to Guitar Principles… there right and left hand string shifting excercise has been great - and I think they are a big reason that I seem to be picking up these scales pretty quickly.

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So I am working on the pentatonic scale on my guitar now - and I am STILL having fun learning. I have been learning about the pentatonic scale in “The Everything Rock & Blues Guitar Book” by Marc Schonbrun. I will have to get a link up to the book at some point, but I am a little too busy right now. A lot of people complain about learning scales…

But so far I have been having fun with the pentatonic scale. Actually, the book quickly takes you beyond the basic scale and turns it into the blues scale by adding a couple of b flats in. And THAT really makes the scale sound a lot cooler.

Now so far I have only learned one “form” of the pentatonic scale - and there are five different forms… all in due time! None of this stuff with learning the guitar comes easy for me, I struggle with everything.

HOWEVER, I am spending some time with this - not the four hours a day some people seem to practice, but I am practicing my guitar three to five times a day, 15 to 20 minutes each time. I seem to have lots of little breaks when I can pick up my guitar, and doing it this way makes it fun.

So right now, I am working on the first form of the A minor pentatonic scale - that is the notes A, C, D, E, and G. You throw in the Em (E minor) and you end up with the blues scale. There is a bit of music theory mixed in with this book… which is OK with me. Hard to understand, but I can take it in small doses.

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