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Pentatonic Boxes that Don't Suck Video Lecture - Guitar Become a Pro (English)
Text Transcript from Video
boxes aside from being the mortal enemy
of bags and mines they're also a very
useful way to supplement your knowledge
of moving through the fat border so
today we're going to talk a little bit
about boxes maybe specifically
pentatonic boxes and how you can use
them without getting trapped inside of
them and this is going to be the
demonstration we're going to use so if
that seemed kind of difficult it really
isn't and we're gonna break it down
really quickly so first of all let's
define what a box is there's a couple
different ways that people think about
boxes specifically pentatonic boxes I've
seen some people think of a box as an
entire pentatonic shape right like the
whole shape could be like box one
something like that
- to me what a box actually is is just
any guitar pattern that has four corners
so what I mean by that if we take like
the a minor pentatonic shape right here
and we kind of zoom in on maybe the
first 1 2 3 4 5 6 notes right there
right what I see as a box are these four
corner notes right so it's really just
kind of like a self-contained rectangle
and eventually if you get familiar
enough with scales and stuff you'll be
able to see these patterns and you can
use that same rectangular box and link
them together so we're going to do is
we're going to learn four different
boxes and then start stringing them
together with chords to kind of make it
a more fretboard expansive exercise
right so the first one we're gonna learn
is going to be from the e minor scale
the E minor pentatonic scale however you
want to look at it right and the e is
rooted on the twelfth fret of the low E
string this is the octave e right and if
we take like a minor pentatonic thing
we get that now we're gonna focus in on
just a couple of these boxes right so
I'm gonna actually go to the a-string
grab this box right here so 12a 214 a 12
B 2 14 B okay now if you notice you can
do the same thing down a string you can
think of that as an extension of one
boxes it's totally different box that's
the cool thing about this there's no one
way to look at it it's just how you want
to create these patterns in your head to
link them together right so we have
these two boxes and where as you can
learn another one that goes right here
this is a deer so 10 here 12 a 10 a 12 a
so we have this box which links up with
this box which links up with this box we
kind of have three boxes or if you can
think of this in just one box if you
want so we're gonna do is we're gonna
play this one I'm gonna play this one
[Music]
the great thing is you can build up a
lot of speed with these because it's
just two fingers and usually the
intervals are pretty similar space even
though the frets kind of taper and get
smaller on the way down so what we're
gonna do is we're gonna slide from one
box to another box right so we have this
first one and now on in the bottom right
corner of this rectangle which is also
the top left corner of this rectangle so
I'm going to use this to transition into
the next one so we've got okay now we
can even go on step further and kind of
bring it in to the next one alright so
this is gonna be the first lick that
we're gonna learn
[Music]
all right on doing is going hammer on
the first three notes of that box I'm
gonna go back on so I'm turning this
four corner box into a razor come
triplets triple-chocolate and then I'm
gonna slide into the next one I'm gonna
end on the corner of this one which is
12 G so alright there's the whole thing
now if you do this if you drill this you
can actually get really quick because
it's just hammer ons and slides so you
don't have to you're not relying upon
your picking hand to do a lot of work
now the reason it kind of sounds good
when it stops here on this G the theory
behind this is we're kind of just taking
notes from E minor pentatonic and its
parent major scale is G so if you don't
know that is you I've made a video on
relative minor that you can go to but
basically G and E minor sound really
good together right so that's gonna be
our first lick okay I also want to take
a second to focus on this one box which
is 12 D 14 D 12 G 14 G now we're gonna
connect a chord to this right and the
cord is gonna be an opening minor so
we're gonna play this a minor we're
gonna jump into this box and I realize
this is a really wide voice thing that
we're doing here and if Jo pass would
see this he'd roll over in his grave but
I like it because it's kind of a fret
board spanning thing even though it
could be more efficient we could play
the e minor here but I want to kind of
get in the habit of breaking out of
physicians and just moving through the
neck right so we're gonna start with a
minor chord into that box and it's going
in
- hammer ons gear
dr. G all right so E minor and then
maybe the second time instead of going
hammer amber GG you go hammer hammer you
can bend it you can do whatever you want
with these four corners of the box and
some people don't like teaching in boxes
because you're only getting a smaller
view of a bigger picture but I think
they're very useful in being able to
hone in on parts of a scale all right so
I'm taking this from a larger scale but
I'm really focusing because the danger
is if you just look at a whole scale
like everything it just sounds like kind
of like a busy pentatonic exercise but
whatever so we've got before and then
we've got the lick so we're gonna match
this chord this leg and back to the
chord with that box right so chord lick
Gorge box whatever how are we going to
look at it now the next thing we're
gonna do is we're going to take two more
box shapes and this is totally more of
my style because we're gonna turn them
into little chords you think it is a
double stops whatever you want to do but
the first box that we're gonna use with
an a minor chord it's gonna be right
here mm same thing but we're in a kind
of position on the neck right and we're
gonna go 5d 275 G 78 and we're gonna
attach this with another box right here
which I'm thinking more of like a C
major or you can think of C mixolydian
mode whatever that important how you get
to it but it's just important to you
know these notes right so we have 8 B to
10 B 8 to 10 so here's the first one
mm-hmm there's like one now what I
incorporate into my own personal playing
style is taking them as like kind of
like little pieces of course so instead
of playing them one note at a time I'm
kind of borrowing both of them getting
them
then kind of hitting them in a different
way right and what's nice about this one
right here it matches this up to the
other part of that second box that we
just learned a second ago right so
really we have five seven five seven
eight ten eight ten and now you get
creative and then we can also swing
these together with the first box that
we learned which is the twelfth fret and
the fourteenth fret alright so we have
this box get this box for this box
alright so again I'm using different
fingers for each one and it's going to
be able to see the the outline of these
boxes in your mind's eye instead of
having to rely on your fingers because
then you can be a lot more creative with
and the sliding feel and stuff like that
right so we're going to put this little
liquor if whatever you want to call on
top of an E minor it's like the sexiest
thing you can possibly do with all these
right so let's put both of them together
and just kind of go an E minor to a a
minor chord progression which we're kind
of soloing however you want to look with
these shapes into a more cohesive kind
of song like structure right so we're
going to start with the E minor
[Music]
so again I was just using a few
different boxes and trying to be
creative with it and the beauty of
simplifying something in such a tight
compact way right is that you can really
it be I almost think you can be more
creative with the limitations of staying
inside of this and as long as we're
moving it around and connecting it and
linking them together with different
shapes I think you can do a lot of cool
things like I said just playing five
seven five seven there's an infinite
amount of ways you can combine these
notes you can play this for playing the
single notes into a florida there's a
million different things you can do with
this so it's not the only way to look at
opening up the fret board but I think
it's a really valuable way to start just
improving your mind's eye and how you
see things also too I have finally been
convinced to get on Twitter and
Instagram so I'm going to link you below
if you're into that kind of thing hit me
up if not how we'll see you next time
thank you
of bags and mines they're also a very
useful way to supplement your knowledge
of moving through the fat border so
today we're going to talk a little bit
about boxes maybe specifically
pentatonic boxes and how you can use
them without getting trapped inside of
them and this is going to be the
demonstration we're going to use so if
that seemed kind of difficult it really
isn't and we're gonna break it down
really quickly so first of all let's
define what a box is there's a couple
different ways that people think about
boxes specifically pentatonic boxes I've
seen some people think of a box as an
entire pentatonic shape right like the
whole shape could be like box one
something like that
- to me what a box actually is is just
any guitar pattern that has four corners
so what I mean by that if we take like
the a minor pentatonic shape right here
and we kind of zoom in on maybe the
first 1 2 3 4 5 6 notes right there
right what I see as a box are these four
corner notes right so it's really just
kind of like a self-contained rectangle
and eventually if you get familiar
enough with scales and stuff you'll be
able to see these patterns and you can
use that same rectangular box and link
them together so we're going to do is
we're going to learn four different
boxes and then start stringing them
together with chords to kind of make it
a more fretboard expansive exercise
right so the first one we're gonna learn
is going to be from the e minor scale
the E minor pentatonic scale however you
want to look at it right and the e is
rooted on the twelfth fret of the low E
string this is the octave e right and if
we take like a minor pentatonic thing
we get that now we're gonna focus in on
just a couple of these boxes right so
I'm gonna actually go to the a-string
grab this box right here so 12a 214 a 12
B 2 14 B okay now if you notice you can
do the same thing down a string you can
think of that as an extension of one
boxes it's totally different box that's
the cool thing about this there's no one
way to look at it it's just how you want
to create these patterns in your head to
link them together right so we have
these two boxes and where as you can
learn another one that goes right here
this is a deer so 10 here 12 a 10 a 12 a
so we have this box which links up with
this box which links up with this box we
kind of have three boxes or if you can
think of this in just one box if you
want so we're gonna do is we're gonna
play this one I'm gonna play this one
[Music]
the great thing is you can build up a
lot of speed with these because it's
just two fingers and usually the
intervals are pretty similar space even
though the frets kind of taper and get
smaller on the way down so what we're
gonna do is we're gonna slide from one
box to another box right so we have this
first one and now on in the bottom right
corner of this rectangle which is also
the top left corner of this rectangle so
I'm going to use this to transition into
the next one so we've got okay now we
can even go on step further and kind of
bring it in to the next one alright so
this is gonna be the first lick that
we're gonna learn
[Music]
all right on doing is going hammer on
the first three notes of that box I'm
gonna go back on so I'm turning this
four corner box into a razor come
triplets triple-chocolate and then I'm
gonna slide into the next one I'm gonna
end on the corner of this one which is
12 G so alright there's the whole thing
now if you do this if you drill this you
can actually get really quick because
it's just hammer ons and slides so you
don't have to you're not relying upon
your picking hand to do a lot of work
now the reason it kind of sounds good
when it stops here on this G the theory
behind this is we're kind of just taking
notes from E minor pentatonic and its
parent major scale is G so if you don't
know that is you I've made a video on
relative minor that you can go to but
basically G and E minor sound really
good together right so that's gonna be
our first lick okay I also want to take
a second to focus on this one box which
is 12 D 14 D 12 G 14 G now we're gonna
connect a chord to this right and the
cord is gonna be an opening minor so
we're gonna play this a minor we're
gonna jump into this box and I realize
this is a really wide voice thing that
we're doing here and if Jo pass would
see this he'd roll over in his grave but
I like it because it's kind of a fret
board spanning thing even though it
could be more efficient we could play
the e minor here but I want to kind of
get in the habit of breaking out of
physicians and just moving through the
neck right so we're gonna start with a
minor chord into that box and it's going
in
- hammer ons gear
dr. G all right so E minor and then
maybe the second time instead of going
hammer amber GG you go hammer hammer you
can bend it you can do whatever you want
with these four corners of the box and
some people don't like teaching in boxes
because you're only getting a smaller
view of a bigger picture but I think
they're very useful in being able to
hone in on parts of a scale all right so
I'm taking this from a larger scale but
I'm really focusing because the danger
is if you just look at a whole scale
like everything it just sounds like kind
of like a busy pentatonic exercise but
whatever so we've got before and then
we've got the lick so we're gonna match
this chord this leg and back to the
chord with that box right so chord lick
Gorge box whatever how are we going to
look at it now the next thing we're
gonna do is we're going to take two more
box shapes and this is totally more of
my style because we're gonna turn them
into little chords you think it is a
double stops whatever you want to do but
the first box that we're gonna use with
an a minor chord it's gonna be right
here mm same thing but we're in a kind
of position on the neck right and we're
gonna go 5d 275 G 78 and we're gonna
attach this with another box right here
which I'm thinking more of like a C
major or you can think of C mixolydian
mode whatever that important how you get
to it but it's just important to you
know these notes right so we have 8 B to
10 B 8 to 10 so here's the first one
mm-hmm there's like one now what I
incorporate into my own personal playing
style is taking them as like kind of
like little pieces of course so instead
of playing them one note at a time I'm
kind of borrowing both of them getting
them
then kind of hitting them in a different
way right and what's nice about this one
right here it matches this up to the
other part of that second box that we
just learned a second ago right so
really we have five seven five seven
eight ten eight ten and now you get
creative and then we can also swing
these together with the first box that
we learned which is the twelfth fret and
the fourteenth fret alright so we have
this box get this box for this box
alright so again I'm using different
fingers for each one and it's going to
be able to see the the outline of these
boxes in your mind's eye instead of
having to rely on your fingers because
then you can be a lot more creative with
and the sliding feel and stuff like that
right so we're going to put this little
liquor if whatever you want to call on
top of an E minor it's like the sexiest
thing you can possibly do with all these
right so let's put both of them together
and just kind of go an E minor to a a
minor chord progression which we're kind
of soloing however you want to look with
these shapes into a more cohesive kind
of song like structure right so we're
going to start with the E minor
[Music]
so again I was just using a few
different boxes and trying to be
creative with it and the beauty of
simplifying something in such a tight
compact way right is that you can really
it be I almost think you can be more
creative with the limitations of staying
inside of this and as long as we're
moving it around and connecting it and
linking them together with different
shapes I think you can do a lot of cool
things like I said just playing five
seven five seven there's an infinite
amount of ways you can combine these
notes you can play this for playing the
single notes into a florida there's a
million different things you can do with
this so it's not the only way to look at
opening up the fret board but I think
it's a really valuable way to start just
improving your mind's eye and how you
see things also too I have finally been
convinced to get on Twitter and
Instagram so I'm going to link you below
if you're into that kind of thing hit me
up if not how we'll see you next time
thank you
About this Video
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Apr 21, 2026 Last updated
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