Weekly Workout: Spice up Your Playing with Minor Chords

Most guitarists, regardless of ability or genre, are familiar with playing pentatonic scales. Countless songs, melodies, solos, and classic riffs are based on the sound and structure of the pentatonic scale, which is literally any scale with five notes. However, most musicians refer to the major-pentatonic scale, which is built from scale degrees 1-2-3-5-6; or, a major scale without the fourth and seventh degrees. The minor-pentatonic scale (1-b3-4-5-b7) is an inversion of the major pentatonic (from the fifth note, or scale degree 6), and is often the first scale that guitarists learn on the fretboard.