A Major Pentatonic, Bass Side

5 notes to the octave, mapped below onto this reader's EADG fretboard, with every A called out. Those markers are the useful part mid-bar: a chart moves under you, and the thing you need is where the root went — not where the pattern started.

Open, sunny, and hard to play wrong — with no half steps there is nothing to clash, so every note sits comfortably over a major chord. Warm, folksy, and singable.

Heard in: Country, bluegrass, folk, gospel, Southern rock, and countless pop hooks — from "Amazing Grace" to "My Girl".

Two numbers side by side leave a gap, and a bass player fills it — the walk from one root to the next is invented on the spot out of these notes, and it is the loudest improvisation on the floor.

Play it slowly against the audio until the shape stops being a shape, then take it to a chart counted in A and let the numbers pick their own notes out of it.