Starting theory - some Q's on Scales

BillDL

@viz I think he means how clusters of notes in one scale shape are common to and shared by the next scale position up or down the neck in the same key and therefore how the shapes overlap.

@guitarjack66 I was looking for my notes about this but I only have scans of old hand drawn grids and they're a bit messy.  Rather than typing stuff out, hopefully this page that I found will show you this overlap of scale positions/shapes under the section entitled "connecting the scale shapes":

Major Pentatonic Scale:

https://appliedguitartheory.com/lessons/major-pentatonic-scale/

Obviously this has to be read in conjunction with what was explained before and what comes after, but I think it answers what you were asking.  At the bottom of the above page there is a link to download a "cheat sheet" sheat shows all the different Pentatonic scale positions stacked one above the other on a single sheet.  This is quite a good visual aid.

Minor Pentatonic Scale:

https://appliedguitartheory.com/lessons/a-minor-pentatonic-scale/

The secret to understanding why scale shapes sound like they do over certain chords is being able to see the notes of the different chords and their different inversions right under the scale you are playing.  Starting from the A Major Pentatonic, if you can see the different chord forms of A Major under each different scale position, then it will help you to see the root note, the 3rd, and the 5th of the chords and corresponding scale notes.  If you can then do the same for the A Minor Pentatonic scale (same notes as C Major Pentatonic) and the notes of the A minor chords underneath, then you have a good start.

Cranky

guitarjack66 said:

GuyBoden said:

We can all listen and hear music, then with practice, we can train our ears to decipher what we are hearing and be able to play it. That is the main skill of a musician. The rest is mechanics.

My mechanical skills are about as bad as my knowledge of scales and any car I had to fix would be a write off! That said I understand the CAGED system but can't quite make the connection between the two.

If I understand you correctly, I would say that CAGED and scales are two different ways of learning and deciphering.  CAGED is a good start to learning chord tones (1, 3, 5 and 7) using the movable chord shapes.  But there’s a lot of interplay between CAGED and scales, and in fact one of our fellow tFbers has a great video on this interplay from a couple years ago, and it was one of the best lessons I ever saw on YT: https://youtu.be/Lm72n_T_cnc?si=wEA3Zi3yBJzHikU2

If you know some pentatonic shapes/positions already and then start working through CAGED, it should tie a lot together for you.