Here’s a handy cheat sheet showing you the most-common minor pentatonic scales in open position. Specifically, this shows the A minor, E minor and D minor pentatonic scales — which are the three minor shapes you’ll want to know in open position.
For each scale, I show both the tab notation as well as a fretboard map of the scale. Root notes are highlighted in each diagram, ensuring it’s easy to find the home base notes that each scale is built around.
When first learning these scales, I suggest playing along with these single-note backing tracks! Pick a track that matches the scale you’re practicing (e.g. E minor pentatonic scale should be paired with the E practice track) and you’re good to go.
The biggest piece of advice I can offer to get you started: be aware of your chord tones. That is, the 1-b3-5 notes within the scale. These are the same notes that give you the minor chord per each note — and they simply all sound good when played over the track.
Specifically, these notes work great as “safe” notes, as if you’re on base if this were baseball or freeze tag. The other notes (the 4 and b7) will give a slight bit of tension, so typically you’ll want to use these notes in passing… which is appropriate given they’re sometimes called passing tones.
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