Using Major Pentatonic Shapes

[Jimi75]

A thing that really improved my playing many years ago was learning to play around the chords with pentatonics. After enough practice the whole topic lightens up and you will easily dive into cool fills. I have taken the major chords c,g,e,a,d. Lets pretend you play a c on3rd fret on the a-string. Start the c-major pentatonic on that c, then play the minor pentatonic starting from that c. It's important to play the chord and then play the pentatonic box. Move on the next c-note and do the same. The advantage is that you don't have to count frets etc. It can't be helpful to play around 3rd fret and then jump to the 8th fret for position 1 rocking...
It's important to play out of a natural feel for the chord that undergoes your fill. Think Hendrix ;-) Play the chord, play the scale, make short little licks. Now transpose these licks on the fretboard. Tha is a way to explore the positions. You have all the time in the world and you play some cool licks already from what I have heard on your clips. Don't worry, you will do a good job in that band as long as you know where you are in the song. Start filling the "gaps" in between the pentatonic notes from time to time. If you start playing scales at once, your fills will sound like scales...hope you get what I mean.

[Eric***]

A thing that really improved my playing many years ago was learning to play around the chords with pentatonics. After enough practice the whole topic lightens up and you will easily dive into cool fills. I have taken the major chords c,g,e,a,d. Lets pretend you play a c on3rd fret on the a-string. Start the c-major pentatonic on that c, then play the minor pentatonic starting from that c. It's important to play the chord and then play the pentatonic box. Move on the next c-note and do the same. The advantage is that you don't have to count frets etc. It can't be helpful to play around 3rd fret and then jump to the 8th fret for position 1 rocking...
It's important to play out of a natural feel for the chord that undergoes your fill. Think Hendrix ;-) Play the chord, play the scale, make short little licks. Now transpose these licks on the fretboard. Tha is a way to explore the positions. You have all the time in the world and you play some cool licks already from what I have heard on your clips. Don't worry, you will do a good job in that band as long as you know where you are in the song. Start filling the "gaps" in between the pentatonic notes from time to time. If you start playing scales at once, your fills will sound like scales...hope you get what I mean.

That's what I'm trying to do more of lately. One thing I will mention that has been useful to me recently is to make sure you know the entire fretboard in pentatonics or whatever. It will help a lot to at least know your 5 positions inside-out if you don't already.

I for one have needed some remedial help on it, since I really only had position 1 down cold. It helps a lot in that your fingers then know certain patterns and you can focus your brain on the stuff Jimi is talking about instead of trying to remember where your fingers go.