Guitar/music n0ob time: I know what some of these translate out to, but at the same time...not really. I'll probably just do a google search for the different shapes scales I'm not completely familiar with just yet.
I think right now I really need to work on expanding my horizons a little more. When it comes to playing scales, I tend to play one one scale at a time and mostly just moving up and down. It's really all about finding my flow with moving between each I think, and mixing up how I play. Must. Practice. Moar.
First off, the "A minor pentatonic" box that cthrubuoy showed in the second post - that "box" position is pretty much THE standard pentatonic pattern. As you see, the lowest note is A (6th string, 5th fret). So now move that entire box down two frets. Now it's G minor pentatonic. Move it up three frets, it's C minor pentatonic You see how this works.
Now the cool thing is there are other positions for the pentatonic scale than just that one and they're, of course interconnected all the way up the neck. Take g minor pentatonic (G-Bb-C-D-F) in the standard 3rd fret position and add the next position to it:
--3------6----8
--3------6----8
--3---5----7---
--3---5-------8
--3---5-------8
--3------6----8So the initial pattern is between frets 3 and 6. Then next pattern is between frets 5 and 8. So you can play around in the standard position for a little while, then all of the sudden (for example), your ring finger slides up from C to D (G string, 5th to 7th fret). You're now in position to utilize the 6th and 8th frets on the B and G strings, giving you a C and a D (bend the C) you didn't have in the lower box position. So with that, these boxes represent the different patterns available on the neck:
--3------6 ----6---8 ----8---10--- --10---------13 ------13---15
--3------6 ----6---8 ----8------11 -----11------13 ------13---15
--3---5--- --5---7-- --7-----10--- --10-----12---- --12-------15
--3---5--- --5-----8 ----8---10--- --10-----12---- --12-------15
--3---5--- --5-----8 ----8---10--- --10---------13 ------13---15
--3------6 ----6---8 ----8---10--- --10---------13 ------13---15
Then from 15 up, you're starting over at the initial position, just an octave higher. It seems a lot easier (to me) to look at the whole neck as broken up pieces like this, so you can see one pattern at a time, then find a way to connect them as you play. As opposed to writing out ALL those frets connected together, which looks like a jumbled mess.
Hopefully this helps a little. It's easy to see these shapes and be all "Well, that's great, but how does it work?" The way I learned to use them and make them work for me was what others have mentioned doing. I put on Stevie Ray Vaughan's "In Step" album and played around on "Crossfire" in E minor pentatoni (I had the tab for it and was following along). I said "Hmm, I know how those notes work in that song, what about the next song?" I moved that same positioning around a bit, til I determined what key it was in and played around with that position over that song. It worked. And the same with the next song. And the next. I literally played pentatonic solos over that CD for hours that night. The light had come on in my head - "This is how you improvise!" It was awesome.
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