Notes of the Minor Scale.

The order of tones and semi tones in a Minor scale is as follows:

Tone, Semi Tone, Tone Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone.

For example; The A minor scale consists of the notes A, B, C, D, E, F & G.
Remember that there is no such note as B#/Cb and that there is no E#/Fb, and the order of tones and semitones will start to make some sense.

It is not especially important to remember this formula, as the minor scale will follow the same finger patterns regardless of which key you are playing in.

The standard finger pattern for the minor scale is as follows, notice that it is very similar to the pentatonic scale;

However, to take advantage of the economy picking technique, we need to play three notes per string, so we will use the following finger pattern for the minor scale.

Note that although we have changed the finger pattern we are playing exactly the same notes in both examples, the changed positions are marked in red in each diagram.

In these examples we are playing the F# minor scale, starting at the 3rd fret of the 6th (low E) string. The note marked in red shows the start of the A major pattern, which is the relative major scale.

I've labelled the root notes with an R and all other notes with a number to show their position within the scale, for some reason.

Black Notes: These positions should be fretted with the first finger.
Blue Notes: These positions should be fretted with the second finger.
Green Notes: These positions should be fretted with the third finger.
White Notes: These positions should be fretted with the fourth finger.

It's probably a good idea to become familiar with both of these patterns, although the latter (three notes per string) pattern will be more practical when playing extremely fast.

Minor Scale Exercises