Here is the most popular pattern in guitar soloing. It’s a combination of the G, E, and D shape minor scale patterns. Here’s the pattern as it appears in the key of A minor. You can play the notes from this pattern in songs in the key of A minor and in most cases you can play it in songs in the key of A major too.
You’ll see an “R” on one of the notes. This is the pattern’s root. You can use the root to determine where to play the pattern in other key signatures. The pattern’s root note in the illustration is on the A note on the 5th fret of the low E string and therefore in the key of A. If we wanted to play the pattern in the key of B we would play the pattern whereas the root note is on the B note on the 7th fret of the 6th string. In other words, we would just move the entire pattern up two frets. If we wanted to play the pattern in the key of C we would move the root to the C note on the 8th fret and apply the same logic to find the correct positioning of the pattern by its root note for all other key signatures.
