The open E pentatonic minor scale with an extension is a very important scale. You’ve probably seen this scale played before. It’s an open scale, which means you play open notes with it. It goes 6th string open, 6th string 3rd fret, 5th string open, 5th string 2nd fret, 4th string open, 4th string 2nd fret, 3rd string open, 3rd string 2nd fret, 2nd string open, 2nd string 3rd fret, 1st string open, 1st string 3rd fret. That’s the easiest way to remember this scale. Don’t worry about all the names of the notes right away, just worry about the root note, which is the open note. When writing out the fingering for this scale, we will be using 0 for open fingering, 2 for the middle finger, and 3 for the ring finger.
The fingering for this open scale goes: 0 3 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 3 0 3
This scale is harmonically friendly to the key of E. This means you can play any Em, E pentatonic minor, or E7 chords and they all work well with this scale.
There’s an extension to this scale, which is out of the relative major scale, but this lesson won’t go into the whole explanation of what that means. To play the extension of this scale, start off by going through the scale like you normally play it. When you get to the 3rd string, the A which is on the 2nd fret, jump up with your third finger to the 4th fret 3rd string and instead of playing the open B, play the B there instead. This brings you into the next part of the scale. Use your second finger on the 3rd fret, 2nd string, then go up to the 5th fret 2nd string, then cross over with your 3rd fret 1st string and finally 5th fret 1st string.
The fingering on the way up is different from the way down. When writing this out, we will be once again using 0 for open fingering, and P for when you use your pinkie.
The fingering on the way up goes: 0 3 0 2 0 2 0 2 3 2 P 2 P
The fingering on the way down is slightly different and goes: P 2 P 2 3 1 0 2 0 2 0 3 0
If you follow those finger patterns you’ll have a much easier time with this scale. Scales are really important because all of your riffs will come out of scales.
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