Level Up Your Guitar Solos: Add Variation with Pentatonic Scales | Steve Stine Guitar Lessons

In this blog post, I’m going to talk about how to use the pentatonic scale creatively to keep your solos interesting and add variation. This is the third video in my three-part series for my new course called Melodic Soloing, which is now on sale at the link in the description.

In the first video, we discussed building out arpeggios for each one of the chords in our song to create a more melodic sound. In the second video, we looked at adding in more diatonic flavor by not just playing arpeggios but to also combine more color.

Now, for this final video, I’m going to take a step back and talk about how to use the pentatonic scale. The reason for this is that it eliminates some of the color. When you’re soloing, you want to be able to shift and manipulate different avenues of thought process, because if you’re always using the same scale or the same idea, everything winds up sounding the same.

For this example, I’m going to use the E Minor Pentatonic scale. This will give us a different sound than what we get from arpeggios. I’ll also add in a bit of the blues sound by doing little things like a slide or adding in blues notes. It’s important to note that I’m not trying to turn this into a blues tune, but I’m adding in just enough of the blues sound to keep it interesting.

In conclusion, using the pentatonic scale creatively can help to keep your solos interesting and add variation. It’s important to remember that if you’re always using the same scale or idea, everything will start to sound the same. Experiment with different scales and techniques to keep it fresh.

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