How Pro Guitarists Decide When To Play The Changes

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:02]Have you ever soloed over a jazzier chord progression where the pentatonic almost works, but certain notes sound great one moment and completely sour the next? Like the scale itself is fine, but it's got some notes that you just can't trust. So, I had a client named Guy who came to me with this problem. He plays bar and restaurant gigs in Antigua.

[00:00:23]Tough gig. And when his band started doing the R&B classic, just the two of us, he struggled. His strategy was just to keep moving around the pentatonic the whole time because anytime he stopped on a note, there was a good chance that it sounded sour. He laughed when he told me this and I did too because I had done the exact same thing on that exact song.

[00:00:44]Years ago, I joined an R&B band in Charlotte called Mo Money. And I was the youngest guy, definitely the least experienced. We had a sax player named Zad Rabia who could solo over anything.

[00:00:57]Just the two of us was a tune that the band played and at first it gave me a fit. I was doing exactly what Guy described. Just keep moving. Hope for the best. I had no idea why I was struggling. But Zad knew exactly why it wasn't working and he showed me why.

[00:01:12]Today I want to show you what I eventually learned because once you see it, it's actually not complicated. As usual, I've put together free diagrams and a backing track that go with today's lesson. You can grab those by clicking the link down in the description below.

[00:01:26]All right, let's get into it. Step one, identify the key. So, the first thing I had Guy do was figure out what key the song is in. He correctly identified it as F minor. Though, it does take a little listening because the progression actually starts on a D flat major chord.

[00:01:43]The song doesn't feel resolved until that F minor chord lands at the end of the progression. That's your tonal center.

[00:02:00]Step two, find the chords in the key. So now we need to know what chords belong in the key of F minor. The easiest way to do this is through the relative major connection in the pentatonic scale.

[00:02:12]Here's a quick way to find it. If I put my index finger on F and play the F minor pentatonic, my pinky lands on the note A flat.

[00:02:25]That's the relative major. So A flat major is our relative key. And here are the six main chords in that key. Since R&B uses jazzier seventh chords instead of triads, we are going to look at the seventh chords in the key of A flat. So the one chord is a flat major 7.

[00:02:44]The two chord B flat minor 7. The three chord is C minor 7. The four chord is D flat major 7. The five chord is E flat dominant 7. And the six chord is F minor 7.

[00:03:03]Step three, compare the progression to the key. So now let's look at the actual chord progression and see where the cracks are. The song starts with a D flat major 7 chord. That's the four chord in the key. No problem. Next chord is C7. And the three chord in the key should be C minor 7. The fact that it's a dominant 7 tells us that it's been changed. It's outside of the key. The next chord is F minor 7. That's the six chord. It's in key. The next two chords are E flat minor 7 and A flat 7. And in the key of A flat, those should be E flat dominant 7 and A flat major 7. Both of those have been changed here, which gives us another two out of key chords.

[00:03:45]So in total, we've got three nondiatonic chords, C7, E flat minor 7, and A flat 7. And that's your answer to why the pentatonic scale feels slippery. If a chord is outside the key, it's probably also outside the scale. Step four, your options from simplest to most complex.

[00:04:06]When chords fall outside the key, you've got four main strategies. I'll give you the quick version of all four and then we'll go deep on the one that's the most useful. Strategy one, power through it.

[00:04:18]Just play the F minor pentatonic over everything and accept that some notes will sound sour over those outside chords. This is what my client was doing and what a lot of players do without even knowing it. Sometimes it works fine, especially if you're moving through those chords quickly. It's not wrong, it's just zoomed out. Strategy two, find the good note. You can use your ear to identify a note or two within the scale that sits well over each of those outside chords. This is much less about theory and more about listening closely, and a lot of great players do this intuitively. Uh Eric Clapton comes to mind. Strategy three, the caged approach. Here we find the caged shapes for the noniatonic chords and we target those chord tones when those chords come around. This is where the zoomed out and the zoomed in ideas really click together. And this is what we're going to focus on today. Strategy four, multiple scales. The most complex strategy to approach this is switching scales for each noniatonic chord. Every noniatiotonic chord has a scale that goes with it. And this multiscale approach works great, but it's quite complex. And honestly, it's much easier to get once you've already internalized the caged approach. So, we'll save that for another day. Step five, the caged approach in practice. So, let's start with shape one of the F minor pentatonic scale. I could do that at the first fret, but I'm going to bump it up 12 frets to the 13th fret so that I don't have to deal with open strings later.

[00:06:00]Now, when the C7 chord hits, instead of staying in the pentatonic, I'm going to locate a C chord nearby and just play notes from that shape. And I've got this D shape of C right here and this C shape of C that are really in close proximity to my F minor pentatonic.

[00:06:28]But the E flat minor 7 and the A flat 7 chords. Here's the thing. They're moving by quickly enough and they share enough notes with the overall sound that in my first example, I'm gonna let those go and just only react to the C7 chord.

[00:06:42]It's a musical decision, not a theory gap.

[00:07:08]Now, if I did want to react to the E flat minor 7 and A flat 7 chords, I would do the exact same thing. I would just use cage shapes for those chords.

[00:07:17]For the E flat minor chord, I can play the E minor bar chord shape here at the 11th fret. And for the A flat 7 chord, I can play the A shape of A flat also here at the 11th fret. And those two chords are in close proximity to my F minor pentatonic.

[00:08:08]Happy.

[00:08:22]And now I'll play a few rounds of the progression, switching between all three of these approaches so that you can hear the difference. Zoomed out, ignoring the changes, just playing F minor pentatonic. Zoomed in slightly, targeting the C7 chord tones only.

[00:08:38]Zoomed in further, targeting the C7, E flat minor 7, and A flat 7 chords.

[00:08:47]Heat. Heat.

[00:09:27]Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

[00:09:52]You can hear how each one works and how the sound moves from rootsy to jazzier the more that you zoom in. None of them is wrong. The question is what the moment calls for. Here's the takeaway.

[00:10:05]When a chord progression feels slippery under the pentatonic scale, it's usually because some of those chords are outside the key. The number system tells you which chords are causing the problem.

[00:10:17]Your caged shapes give you a simple visual way to handle them without having to think in a bunch of different scales or memorize a bunch of new theory. Start with just one outside chord. Find its caged shape in the area of the neck where you're already soloing in. Target those notes when that chord hits. That's it. That's the move. And don't forget the free diagrams and backing track for this lesson are linked down in the description below. Download those and work through this slowly with the track.

[00:10:48]The number system, the cage system, and the landmark pentatonic system that we use today are the three core frameworks in my essential skills course. If you want to go deeper with that approach, the link to learn about the course is also in the description below. And if you want to keep building on this and see how these skills are actually used by pros, check out this video next. And if today's lesson helped you think about soloing a little differently, please like and subscribe. It genuinely helps this channel grow and it helps me make more content like this. Thanks. I'll see you next week.

[00:11:20]Ready? Yep.