by Tom Watson

Goal: Learn to improvise over a chord progression using form 3 of the major pentatonic scale.

How: By using these notes to improvise over this chord progression.

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Introduction

In Lesson Three we're going to again expand our knowledge of the major pentatonic scale by moving our fingers up the fretboard and learning form 3.

Good news and bad news

The bad news: Form 3 is the most "difficult" of the five forms. I say this because it spans five frets as opposed to the four fret span of the other forms. As a result, you'll have to shift your fingers up a fret when playing the two notes of the pattern that are on the second string.

The good news: You're more than halfway there - only two more forms to go after form 3!

Form 3 of the major pentatonic scale in A major [back to top]

Listen to this scale pattern:

Stream: Form 3 of the major pentatonic scale in A major

And here is the major chord form that relates to the form 2 pentatonic scale:

Improvising with form 2 of the major pentatonic scale in A major [back to top]

The next step is to practice improvising using the notes and fingerings of form 3.

We're going to use a different chord progression from what we used in Lesssons One and Two. This progression uses four different chords: Amaj7, F#m7, Bm7 and D9. Here are diagrams to show you one way to play these chords.

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Here's the chord progression with the number of beats each chord receives in parentheses:

Amaj7(4) - F#m7(4) - Bm7(4) - D9(4)

Here's the progression repeated several times:

Stream: Amaj7 - F#m7 - Bm7 - D9:

Here's a sample improvisation using only the notes in form 3 over the above chord progression.

Stream: Improvisation using form 3 of the major pentatonic scale in A major

In the next lesson

In Lesson Four we're going to cover form 4 of the major pentatonic scale and take an introductory look at a couple of techniques that will improve the sound of your improvisations.

Meanwhile, noodle away!

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