Scale Sequences and String Skipping

A scale played straight tells the ear exactly one thing: this will continue until it stops. Useful for practice, dull as melody. A sequence fixes that by applying a pattern to the scale (play four notes, start again one step higher), so the same notes come out sounding arranged instead of recited. String skipping attacks the same dullness from the other side: it lets a line leap where scales can only walk.

This lesson has four pieces of tab: fours through the pentatonic box, threes through the three-note-per-string shape, a bare skipping drill, and a lick that spends what the drills earn.

Fours through the pentatonic

“Fours” means: play four scale notes ascending, then restart the group one scale step higher. In A minor pentatonic that's A, C, D, E, then C, D, E, G, then D, E, G, A, and so on up the box. Forward four, back three, forward four. That zigzag is what the ear latches onto.

The tab runs seven groups of sixteenths through shape 1, starting from the low A at fret 5. Standard box fingering the whole way: index at fret 5, ring finger at 7, pinky at 8, hand floating over the box while the fingers reach. Bar 2 parks on a quarter-note E at fret 5 on the B string with vibrato. E is the fifth, not the root, so the drill ends stable but open, which is fine for a drill. When you want it to close, run one more group and land on the A at fret 5 on the high E.

Alternate picking, and the string crossings land awkwardly on purpose: the group boundaries keep shifting against the string changes, and learning to pick through that is most of the workout.

Threes through the three-note-per-string shape

The same idea in groups of three, played as triplets: A, B, C, then B, C, D, then C, D, E. Triplets roll where sixteenths drive, so the identical concept comes out with a completely different feel, and threes-in-triplets is the sound of a thousand classic rock runs. This drill uses the three-note-per-string pattern from lesson 6 instead of the box, because a shape that hands you three notes on every string was built for this.

Bar 1 climbs four groups from the low A at fret 5. Bar 2 runs two more and settles on A at fret 7 on the D string, held with vibrato for two beats. The root this time: a real ending. If triplets against the click feel slippery, that's lesson 4's subdivision work asking for a revisit.

String skipping: leaps where the scale walks

Scale shapes move in steps because adjacent strings sit next to each other. Skip a string and the line suddenly jumps a fifth: A at fret 7 on the D string, over the G string, to E at fret 5 on the B string. Intervals that wide are rare enough in guitar lines that they instantly sound deliberate.

The drill is plain on purpose. Bar 1: two notes on the D string (G and A, frets 5 and 7), a clean skip over the G string, two notes on the B string (E and G, frets 5 and 8), then the whole cell again. Bar 2 moves it up a string set: C and D on the G string, skip the B string, A and C on the high E.

Two mechanical notes. First, aim with a generous wrist arc; precision comes before economy, and the arc shrinks on its own once your aim is honest. Second, rest the underside of whichever fretting finger is nearby across the skipped string, so a sloppy pick stroke produces silence instead of an open G. At 65 BPM there is no excuse the metronome will accept.

A lick that spends it

Here's what the drilling buys. Bar 1: C and D on the G string, leap over the B string to A and C on the high E, fall back across the same gap to D, then stretch the pinky up to E at fret 9 (borrowed from the natural minor scale) and back. Bar 2 drops to A at fret 7 on the D string, skips up to E on the B string, and lands the payoff: G at fret 8 on the B string bent a full step to A and held. Bending that in tune is lesson 3's business; check the target against fret 5 on the high E, which is the same A.

Notice what the skips do musically: the phrase keeps vaulting between registers the way a singer can't, which is exactly why it sounds like guitar playing and not scale playing.

How to practice this

Twelve to fifteen minutes: four on the fours at 70 BPM, four on the threes at 70, three on the skipping drill at 65, and the rest on the lick at 75, slower if the bend isn't reaching pitch. Raise tempos with the lesson 8 rules, two to four BPM after three clean passes. Every drill here also converts to legato: keep the fingering, pick only the first note on each string, and hammer or pull the rest. A picked week followed by a legato week builds two different hands and one vocabulary.

Sequences generalize further than one box. The full A minor pentatonic reference gives you four more shapes to run fours through, and the A natural minor page maps the seven-note scale the threes came from. Next lesson the picking hand stops picking and starts fretting: tapping.