Here's a pretty cool-sounding, fast E major pentatonic-based run that takes you all over the fretboard.
I love runs like this, and I play these types of elongated patterns often. Here, I pick the first note on each string and use hammer-ons, pull-offs and legato slides, at times in combination, to give the notes some variation in attack and create smooth phrasing.
The notes are within the E major pentatonic scale (E F# G# B C#), except for two: the C note at the end of bar 1, which functions as a chromatic passing tone between B and C#, and the A note on beat three of bar 5, which functions as the fourth resolving to the third (G#).
You can also use this run in a minor context by moving all the notes proportionally up or down the neck and/or playing it over a different bass note. For example, if you play the entire run, with the exception of the final chord, over a low C# bass note or C#5 chord, it will sound like it’s in C# minor, the relative minor key of E major.
To use it in an E minor context, move every note up three frets, starting and ending on G (sixth string, third fret), as any G major idea will sound like an E minor idea if played over an E5 chord or E bass note.
Get The Pick Newsletter
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!

Joni Mitchell described it as ‘fly fishing’ and Jeff Beck was a master of the craft – learn how to use volume swells like guitar legends Eddie Van Halen, Allan Holdsworth and Larry Carlton

How to find new approaches to blues soloing – using fingerstyle improv ideas and Roy Buchanan-inspired licks