Minor Pentatonic Scale and Improvisation

The Minor Pentatonic Scale and Improvisation 

Scales are a concept used in every instrument. They're basically a group of notes that start with the lowest note in the scale and work down towards the highest. They're designed to be used together for soloing and improvisation. 

The first scale I learned was the minor pentatonic scale, Minor meaning it consists of minor notes, and pentatonic meaning it has five tones. There's six notes in every guitar scale (one played on each string), but only five tones because as How to Play Guitar in 10 Easy Steps by Jon Buck says, "G pentatonic minor scale, for example, contains the notes G, Bb, C, D, F, then returns to G" (84). 

When first looking at a scale, I didn't know what to do. 

Minor Pentatonic Scale

Looking at it, I thought I somehow needed to have my fingers on everyone of those dots at once, which I don't even think would be possible. In reality, you only need to finger one string at a time, which is one interval of the scale. For example to play the C interval, you would place your first finger on the third string behind the fifth fret, and your third finger behind the 7th fret on the third string.

Every note on the scale can be played in two ways, one with only the first finger on the string, and one with first and either third or fourth on the string, depending on which interval it is. When practicing I first learned to play the scale and up and down, and later learned how to incorporate patterns into my playing.

Scales are mostly used for soloing and lead guitar, and it would make for a pretty boring solo just to hear a scale played up and down, which is why we use patterns. Patterns boil down to groups of intervals that sound good together, in the same way that chord progressions could be described as groups of chords that sound good together. When I first started playing patterns I always played the first finger only version of the interval, then the first and 3rd/4th version of the interval, before moving onto a new interval. 

Improvisation is a musical idea, originating from jazz and blues, of musicians making up a part of a song on the spot and playing it. Improvisation is almost always done in solos, or as just a solo and a backing rhythm, because getting two players too somehow improvise in a way that would sound good together would be an insane stroke of luck. 

I tried my hand at some improvisation with the minor pentatonic scale because I've always been interested in more improvisational and bizarre forms of music. Improvising with just one scale was actually really difficult, and I felt kind of limited in my arrangements, especially because you can only play certain intervals after another if you want it to sound correct. When improvising I tried to make use of more complex arrangements featuring as many intervals as I could work in to make it more interesting, although again I felt really limited. Regardless I intend to practice improvising again once I learn some more scales, and encourage other musicians to try it. Has anyone else here tried improvising with scales? What did you find helped you?