Guitar Time

Guitar Solos - How to Improvise

Jun 24, 2009 improvisation
Posted by freddy1955

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While their are several types of musical scales, the pentatonic scale has become very popular in several genres of music. For many famous guitar players, including Jimi Hendrix, it is the only scale they need to know.

Eventually, I learned about a popular method, named the CAGED system. CAGED is an acronym for the 5 chords you need to know for this system (C, A, G, E and D).

You only need to memorize 5 patterns on your guitar fret board to improvise using the pentatonic scale. Like a barre chord, you shift these patterns up and down the fret board, according to the key of the song you are playing.

Click on the link above and print it out for your reference.

Ex 1. The fret board image above shows 5 note patterns to memorize. These are pentatonic scale notes. The square dots are root notes. Once you have memorized these patterns, you just shift the patterns up or down the neck depending upon the key of the song.

You might think you have to shift positions with each chord change, but you do not! You only have to know the root note of the root chord, to be able to solo overtop of any song.

Ex 2. The minor pentatonic is the most safe to use, for just about any chord progression.

Note: the minor pentatonic is simply the major pentatonic patterns moved down 2 frets!

For me, Ex. 2 is all I need to improvise over any song.

Related CAGED System Videos:

CAGED Guitar Chord System (sampler)
Intro to CAGED System
CAGED System Primer