The minor scale in two patterns

Books offer loads of patterns for each scale. And all of these need to be memorised.

The best memory people simplify things to make them easier to remember, and the C-A-G-E-D system is one approach to doing this with the major scale. But that is still five patterns. And it doesn't translate very well to minor scales.  What if you just needed to memorize two patterns?

Well here it is.

The minor scale is constructed like this: W-H-W-W-W-H-W.
(W = whole step/tone or 2 frets. H = half=step/tone or 1 fret).

On any fretted instrument, this will form a repeatable pattern. This is how a one-octave minor scale looks with the root at any fret on the 6th string of the guitar, the 5th string and the 4th string.

You can see that it is the same pattern. 

With the root note on the 4th string, the reason it looks different is because the 2nd (B) string is tuned differently. To make up for this the last 2 notes of the pattern have to move up the neck by one fret.

Now to prove it, move the root over to the 3rd string and move notes 4, 5 & 6 up by one fret on the 2nd (B) string. Move notes 7 & 8 across to the 1st (E) string.

So that's Pattern 1 of the minor scale.  What about Pattern 2?

Pattern 2 works in exactly the same way. The root note is played with the 4th finger of your fretting hand on the 6th (low E) string.

The pattern is the same whether the root note is on the 6th, 5th or 4th string. When part of the pattern moves on to the 2nd (B) string, those notes move up the neck by one fret (one semitone). You'll know when you've got it because you'll be able to hear the Sugar Plum Fairy of the minor scale.

There is no Pattern 2 starting with a root on the 3rd string.  There are not enough strings.

Try this. Play the minor scale in A using both patterns with roots on all strings.  Once you have got these two patterns under your fingers, you can start to extend these scales across all strings. Two octave and extended major scales across the neck use a combination of these shapes.

If you get stuck go back to Pattern 1 on the 6th string and use the sound of that as a reference to copy elsewhere on the neck.