Learn Legato Playing the A Minor Pentatonic Scale!

Legato means smoothly, and in practice, it means you'll use hammer-ons and flick-offs instead of picking every note. This guitar lesson will teach you how to do that by playing the A Minor Pentatonic Scale. With this scale, we'll be picking when we move to a new string and then hammering on one note or flicking off. But before we get started, let's review a few things you should know!

Flick-Off or Pull-Off?

Most guitar players and teachers call a flick-off a pull-off. Pull-off is a much more common term, but I don't agree with it! You're not pulling it anywhere; the term flick-off better describes the action that you're using. But how you call it doesn't matter! Pull-offs and flick-offs are exactly the same things.

Hammer-Ons & The Finger Gym

If you're following my Beginner Guitar Course, you met hammer-ons when we learned the Finger Gym Exercise. Missed that out? Please, go back and review that lesson. The Finger Gym is the best exercise for developing your hammer-on skill and general finger strength!

Legato Pentatonics

In this lesson, we'll use hammer-ons and flick-offs very practically, combining them with the A Minor Pentatonic Scale, which you should have learned in our Grade 2. If you're not familiar with Pattern 1 of that scale, you'll need to go back and check it out, as we'll be using that scale to practice our legato techniques. Follow these steps:

Play the first note of the A Minor Pentatonic Scale and hammer the little finger down. If you've learned the Finger Gym, you already know this movement!
Do the same thing on the fifth string, but with your third finger because this is how you play the A Minor Pentatonic scale. So, your first finger, little finger, first finger.
Then, your third finger gets that second note with the same volume as the first. It's the same thing on the fourth and third strings.
Use your little finger on the second string, which goes down on the eighth fret.
Do the same on the thinnest string, all of the way up.

Before we go any further, you must be able to play the A Minor Pentatonic Scale with a consistent speed. Don't worry about trying to do it fast yet. It's much better to play it slowly and get it right!

Do it with a metronome if you can, and don't be in a hurry to speed it up. You must feel confident with it way before speeding it up. My advice is to be able to play at least 10 times perfectly from memory before you even think about speeding it up. Don't forget: perfectly starts slowly.

💡Check out the video tutorial to see what happens when we go down the scale - physically up. It's a great exercise to see if your flick is working correctly, and you'll review the strings you should be muting. A common mistake when playing scale is not muting the notes right!

Now, let me answer a question I always get…

Should You Pick Up or Down?

At this stage of your guitar journey, it doesn't really matter if you choose to pick up or down. I'm playing mostly down picks in this tutorial, but it's not really a big deal if you want to use up picks. Later on, when you're able to play a little bit faster, you might want to start thinking about the picking direction! Still, that depends a lot on the context of what you're playing.

Get Your Metronome!

Once you're confident playing the A Minor Pentatonic scale using hammer-ons and flick-offs, it's time to pop it to the metronome! My recommendation is that you use the speed at which you can play the scale consistently. And don't forget about our little rule of playing 10 times perfectly from memory to only then speed it up!

Transform This Exercise Into a Lick!

A cool little trick is to take this exercise from an exercise and make it into a kind of lick that you might use in a solo. :) It's basically playing a group of six notes that you start off of each string. Simple and effective - check out the tutorial to do it with me.

Work Out Your Pinky First!

You might encounter guitarists using the third finger on the thinnest two strings of the Minor Pentatonic instead of the pinky. Still, I don't recommend you do that for now. I'd encourage you to start this kind of exercise using your pinky because your little fingers are weak, so this little workout will do you some good!

This isn't a string bending lesson. Still, if you're into Blues, you might want to start understanding the difference between the angle of your fingers when playing. You'll never bend strings with a squared angle, and sometimes you'll need to transition between angles so you can bend strings! Check out the video for a practical example, and keep in mind this is something you might want to work on.

Ready for more? This lesson is part of my Beginner Grade 3 - your shift to the Intermediate stages!