G minor pentatonic on guitar

G B♭ C D F (1 ♭3 4 5 ♭7)

The rock and blues lead workhorse. Box 1 has the root under your first finger on the 6th string; the five boxes link end to end up the neck.

The whole neck

The 5 box positions

Boxes: the standard five shapes, two notes per string, one finger per fret. Learn one, then the next one up: they share an edge. Dots show scale degrees: 1 is the root.

Box 1 (frets 3–6)

Box 2 (frets 5–8)

Box 3 (frets 7–11)

Box 4 (frets 10–13)

Box 5 (frets 0–3)