Guitar Theory - Box Shape - For Minor And Major Pentatonic And Blues Scales

In this exercise, we continue on from the previous exercise,

which was to practice making a bar barre shape with the thumb and pointer finger across all 6 strings, at the 5th hand position,

To make half of the box shape,

So now we move on, and use the other 3 fingers to reach the other half of the notes.

In this video, there are shown a few shapes and scale degrees,

3 root triangle shape.

F shape (major shape)

Minor 3rd (minor shape)

Perfect 4th and 5th, which can be thought of as minor or blues shapes within the context of this box shape

The A Minor Pentatonic and C Major Pentatonic are relative minor/major of each other, and thus use the same notes, but from different starting points,

Where the Am5 starts on E string 5th fret A note,

And CM5 starts on E string 8th fret C note.

If you follow the “1 finger per fret” rule,

Then your pointer finger will play all the strings at the 5th fret,

And your middle finger will play all the strings at the 6th fret,

And your ring finger will play all the strings on the 7th fret,

And your pinky finger will play all the strings at the 8th fret...

Then your entire hand will have to micro-adjust between each note.

The most difficult note to reach will be with your pinky finger on the 8th fret low E string,

So if you start there, at the most difficult note to reach, and work your way back thru each note, they should get progressively easier to reach.

That note just happens to be a Minor 3rd interval, within the context of this box shape,

So unfortunately its an important note, and you really will need to practice reaching for it with your pinky finger, which is your weakest finger, at its most extreme reach...

But the good news is, this is the most difficult of all the normal maneuvers, so if you can master this one maneuver, then you know you can master any maneuver on guitar.