D Blues, Resonator Side

6 notes to the octave, mapped below onto this reader's GBDGBD neck, with every D 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.

The minor pentatonic with a b5 "blue note" wedged in — that one extra note adds grit, tension, and a sly, vocal quality. Tough, expressive, and unmistakably bluesy.

Heard in: Blues, rock, jazz, rhythm and blues, and boogie-woogie — Delta and Chicago blues, Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The open tuning gives three of these notes for free; the rest are reached by moving the bar, which is why a player looks at where the scale lies rather than which grips it contains.

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