Zarlino

F minor pentatonic

Natural minor, stripped to its strongest notes.

Drop G and D♭ from F minor and you have it: F A♭ B♭ C E♭. Those two are the key’s tritone, the only unstable pair in natural minor.

What’s left is five notes with nothing leaning and nothing a single fret apart. Solid enough to hit hard, with space around every note.

How it sounds
Raw and bluesy. It keeps minor’s flat third and flat seventh but none of its half steps, so it comes across as tough more than sad.
Where it lives
Blues, rock, funk, soul, hard rock and metal riffs. It’s the default language of the electric guitar solo.

On the neck

Position
Show
Position 1, frets 1 to 4
  • High E string: F at fret 1, A♭ at fret 4
  • B string: C at fret 1, E♭ at fret 4
  • G string: A♭ at fret 1, B♭ at fret 3
  • D string: E♭ at fret 1, F at fret 3
  • A string: B♭ at fret 1, C at fret 3
  • Low E string: F at fret 1, A♭ at fret 4

The notes

In order, with the frets between them: F3A♭2B♭2C3E♭2F

Two kinds of step: two frets, and three where the scale skips a note (F up to A♭, C up to E♭). No two notes sit a single fret apart, so nothing softens the line. It comes out bold.

What each interval does

Home. Every other note is measured from it. E♭ sits two frets below.

F

Perfect unison

Three frets up from F: minor third.

A♭

Minor third

Two frets up from A♭: whole step.

B♭

Perfect fourth

Two frets up from B♭: whole step.

C

Perfect fifth

Three frets up from C: minor third.

E♭

Minor seventh

Playing F minor pentatonic

  • The open E shape, one fret up.

    Root at the 1st fret of the low E. It’s the E minor pentatonic box from open position, moved up a fret, and it’s hard work that close to the nut.

  • Most players go to the 13th.

    The same shape sits an octave up at the 13th fret, where the frets are narrower and nothing needs a full barre.

  • No open strings.

    Nothing rings free in standard tuning, which is why this scale lives up the neck.

What to play it over

Five notes aren’t enough to build a full set of chords, so the useful question is what this scale sounds good over. For minor pentatonic, the answer is almost everything in rock and blues.

  • Home: F minor.

    Over Fm or Fm7 every note fits, and it carries straight through minor progressions like Fm – D♭ – E♭.

  • Over F7: the blues.

    Played over a dominant chord, its A♭ rubs against the chord’s A. That clash is on purpose. It’s the sound of the blues.

  • Over a whole blues in F.

    The same five notes hold up over F7, B♭7 and C7, so one shape can cover a whole twelve-bar.

  • Over power chords.

    F5 has no third, so there’s nothing for the scale to clash with. That’s a big part of why minor pentatonic runs through so many rock riffs.

Want the chords that work with this scale? They’re the seven chords of F natural minor, the full scale it comes from: Fm, Gdim, A♭, B♭m, Cm, D♭ and E♭.

The chords of F natural minor

The family

Relative majorA♭ Major Pentatonic