Hi Dave,
[br]I really enjoyed your GT lesson on the Albert King box last week and am looking forward to the next couple of live sessions as well (even though I was having some difficulty with the live feed [my router or computer was having a hard time keeping up so there were a lot of halts and skips]). Anyway, I hope I can trouble you for a few questions regarding blues solo-ing.
[br]1) I know that with the minor pentatonic scale, you can either stay parked on the root of the I chord, or you can shift the pentatonic root to the IV and V roots when those chords come along. Is that also true for the major pentatonic?
[Edit: OK, just watched a video saying that playing major pentatonic (based on the root of the key) over the IV and V chords is a mistake because one of those notes ends up being a M7 of the IV7 chord so I guess that M7 is sandwiched in between the b7 and root of the chord and that sounds terrible. My understanding is that you therefore need to switch to IV major pent or I minor pentatonic (or I guess IV minor pent). Not sure why you can't do V major pentatonic when the V chord comes along though.]
[br]2) I presume but don’t know for a fact, that it is OK to play major pentatonic over a dom7 chord. Is that correct?
[edit: The only reason I wondered about this was that I wondered if the 6th from the pentatonic major scale sounds too abrasive against the adjacent b7 but some other stuff I just watched led me to believe it is fine].
[br]3) When solo-ing using major pentatonic, a lot of videos for beginning guitarists say that you can just play the familiar minor pentatonic box 1, but play it 3 frets below the root (so your pinky would be playing the root note on the E strings). Is that something that is taught to beginners as sort of a teaching aid, to ease you into major pentatonic, or do solid guitarists also play major pentatonic out of that position (versus just playing box 1 of the major pentatonic [same shape basically as the AK box). What’s the more common approach?
[br]4) If you are playing the blues or minor pentatonic scale rooted on the chord that is being played - e.g., in A blues you start on A minor pentatonic but then switch to D and then E minor pentatonic when those chords come along, it seems there are at least a couple of options for how to do that. One option is that you could start with box 1 of the minor pentatonic and then shift that same shape 5 frets up and then 2 additional frets when the IV and V chords come along, respectively. Alternatively, you could play shape 1 for the I chord (lets say at the 5th fret for A Blues), and then stay in that position (index finger on 5th fret) but switch to shape/box 4 for the IV chord, and then shape/box 3 for the V chord as they’re the same notes. Is one approach generally preferred over the other? If you started off in the Albert King box (basically box 2 of minor pentatonic, right?), the same question would apply. Is it more common to shift that shape up, or to stay in the same place and play a different shape.
[br]Thanks a bunch,
Dave
