Fingerstyle Pentatonic Melody

For Beginners

Hey guys today I am going to show you a super simple fingerstyle pentatonic melody for beginners in A major.

One of the most amazing thing about fingerstyle guitar is that we can combine chords and melody. Chords don’t have to be difficult and the melody can be pretty easy to play indeed.

In fact in this fingerstyle guitar lesson I am going to show you how we can easily play a fingerstyle pentatonic melody that is entirely based on the A major pentatonic scale.

I consider this melody to be happy, acoustic and country ish.

There are three things you must consider when starting this lesson:

For beginner: If you just bought your acoustic guitar three days ago, this is probably not the right lesson for you, but if you have been playing for a couple of month and you need a simple fingerstyle exercise, than I am sure you will enjoy this lesson.
The time signature: This lesson is in 12/8 which means each beat is three notes. If you’ve never played a song based on a compound meter, I suggest you do a little research before you get started.
Finger stretch: The Pentatonic scale can be quite stretchy on the fingers so if you are a beginner chances are your finger stretch isn’t developed enough. You can still play the exercise, just make sure you don’t over-play or force your tendons.

Time to start the lessons.

Have fun playing this fingerstyle pentatonic melody and let me know if you like the lesson on my YouTube channel or Facebook.

Good luck!

Tab available on Patreon!

Get the Tab here!

The Video

The Chord Progression

The chord progression for this fingerstyle pentatonic melody goes as follows: A – E – Bm – D

This super common chord progression can also be labeled as: I – V – vi – IV. The Roman numerals represent the degree of the scale from where these chords are built.

The A major scale goes as follow: A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# – A.

Each note of the scale generate a chord which will follow a specific order of major and minor chords (also diminished if we consider the VII degree). For the major scale the chord progression goes as follow: Maj, min, min, Maj, Maj, min, Dim.

Here’s the A major chords: A major, B minor, C# minor, D major, E major, F# minor, G# diminished.

If you want to play a chord progression based on the I – V – vi – IV degree than you will have to play A – E – Bm – D.

Pentatonic Scale

The Pentatonic scale is one of the most simple scale we found in music. There are many reasons for that but I think the number one reasons is due to its simplicity. In fact, the Pentatonic scale is only five notes (rather than seven).

This simple fingerstyle Pentatonic melody is played using the five notes of the A major Pentatinic Scale: A – B – D – E – F# – A.

As you can see this scale doesn’t have the III and VII degree.

Due to this particular structure the Pentatonic scale is very simple to organize on the guitar neck. There are gaps that make this scale easy to memorize and also chord friendly. It is easy to improvise a solo using the Pentatonic scale because the notes sound good (most of the time).

Here’s a diagram of the A major Pentatonic scale.