All pentatonic guitar scales, by definition have five notes. In western music there are two pentatonic scales commonly used, these are the minor pentatonic scale and the major pentatonic scale. The minor pentatonic scale is commonly used in blues and rock music but is not limited to these genres. Many guitar solos rely on the minor pentatonic scale and it is probably the most common scale used for lead guitar playing. The minor pentatonic scale is composed of: root, flat 3, 4, 5 and flat 7 scale degrees.

The minor pentatonic scale can be converted to the blues scale by simply adding a flat 5 to the scale. This is also a very commonly used scale for not just blues but for many other types of music. When referring to pentatonic guitar scales, often the blues scale will be included even though technically it is not a pentatonic scale.

The second pentatonic scale commonly used is the major pentatonic scale. This scale is comprised of root, 2, 3, 5, 6 scale degrees. This scale is also commonly used in blues guitar and country music but again is not limited to these musical genres.

If we take both of these scales we find they are commonly used together when soloing over a twelve bar blues in conjunction with the flat 5, mentioned earlier, from the blues scale.

To learn lead guitar it is important to learn the minor pentatonic and the major pentatonic guitar scales. These scales can be used for guitar solos in almost any style of music and contain the common notes that the diatonic modes are constructed around.