Interview with Neil Santos – Founder of The Pentatonic Way

Join us as we sit down with Neil Santos, the visionary behind ‘The Pentatonic Way.’ Neil’s approach cuts through the complexity of guitar learning, offering a refreshing perspective on mastering the instrument. This interview delves into his unique journey from Berklee to developing a system that simplifies guitar mastery. Get ready for insights that could change the way you view the fretboard and inspire your musical journey.

Let’s now being this amazing interview with Neil Santos from The Pentatonic Way…

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind “The Pentatonic Way” and what sets it apart from other guitar lesson platforms?

When I started teaching guitar after graduating from Berklee College of Music, I was driven to rethink traditional guitar teaching methods. I rebelled against the standard process of buying a Mel Bay book and learning to read simple songs in the first position. I’m sure that learning methods have worked for many people, but they have always bored me, and I wanted to find a different approach for people with similar reactions.

I wanted to create original lessons that simplified learning and playing the guitar so students could begin making real music as soon as possible. Most students could grasp the concept of playing open chords and then progress to playing barre chords after some time on the instrument. After that, there didn’t seem to be any natural, organized approach to learning to understand the guitar that would give the student complete freedom and confidence.

I started to look at all the different approaches to improvising and making sense of the guitar neck in a useful way. I focused on the simple pentatonic scale and found that it could do several things if it was used in a particular way.

• First, it wouldn’t sound like the pentatonic scale. It would sound like you were playing sophisticated licks and chords created using more complex scales. In that way, this simple scale could punch above its weight class, as they say.
• Second, after a short time, it becomes so easy to remember the shapes and see them all over the neck, which is essential if you want to understand the neck. It also becomes easy to remember the sound of the scale and subconsciously continue to create melodies using it in your head long after you’ve put the guitar down.

• Third, they sound great over any chord progression and style of music. Following the chords with the pentatonic scale and adjusting your rhythmic approach and guitar tone, you can create guitar parts that fit over whatever tunes life throws at you.

How did your own journey as a guitarist lead to the creation of this membership website?

I wanted to be a “lead” guitarist as soon as I started playing. I fell in love with the playing of Eddie Van Halen, Satriani, Vai, and all the other great players in the 80s and 90s. I found it easy to get my hands to do the things that they did, but I couldn’t usually figure out why they did what they did. I was like a parrot who could copy what someone said but didn’t understand it. If you’ve ever had a conversation with a parrot, you’ll know that it is primarily one-sided and doesn’t make much sense. That’s no way to approach playing music.

I took guitar lessons and began understanding how music worked behind the scenes, how chords and scales were made, and how they related and worked together. My studies led me to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, and I graduated with a degree in Film Scoring in 2001.

However, even though my understanding of harmony and complex compositional techniques increased, which improved my songwriting and ability to transcribe music, it didn’t seem to help my lead guitar skills. I was utterly overwhelmed by the scale options and improvisational concepts I was learning about. They made sense to me, but in the moment when improvising, as the chord changes were passing by, it was all too much for my little walnut of a brain to handle, and I could not make use of any of it.

After graduating, I still struggled to find an approach that would allow me to improvise confidently. I messed around with the traditional complex scale options that were improvisers’ favorites: the modes, harmonic and melodic minor, the altered dominant scale, and symmetrical scales. None of them were easy for me to see on the neck, and worst of all, none sounded like the notes I heard in my head and heart. There were many times that I felt pretty depressed and didn’t know if I would ever get to the point where I wanted to on the guitar.

It went on like this for a while. Around the time my first son was born, I saw that my practice time took quite a hit. I could only fit in 15 minutes daily if I woke up early. So I tried to find things to practice that would yield significant results in my limited time. For some reason, I took another look at the pentatonic scale.

I learned the first shape of the pentatonic scale very early on my guitar-playing journey and used it to solo over everything. Like most people, I would figure out a song’s key and play all of my memorized blues licks over it. Some things would sound good, and some wouldn’t. I’d also feel stuck in that box after a bit, and everything would become boring.

I liked the simplicity of the shapes and knew that if I could find a way to use them properly, they would sound great over any chord you used them with. I decided to focus on those during my 15 minutes of practice daily.

That decision changed everything.

The pentatonic scale is a fundamental element in guitar playing. How does “The Pentatonic Way” approach teaching it to beginners and more advanced players?

The pentatonic scale has somehow been labeled in guitarist’s minds as a beginner scale. For example, in my experience, I learned the first shape and maybe a little bit of the shape above and below it. Then I used it like that for a while.

When I felt bored with it, I moved on to the modes and other more complex scales. I felt like, “Pentatonic scales? Been there, done that.” I imagine a lot of different players feel the same way.

So in our courses, when we teach the pentatonic scale to a beginner or someone who hasn’t used them in a while, we’ll start by introducing the five shapes of the scale and a couple of ways to look at them, which might make them easier to memorize.

We also look at how they are built harmonically and can be used as a minor or major scale. We reinforce this by jamming over backing tracks so students can get the sounds into their ears and the shapes under their fingers.

We’ll also introduce small technical ideas that can be played using the pentatonic scales, for example, bending, sliding, and sequences to ascend and descend the scale.

From there, we will move into jamming over more complex chord progressions while switching pentatonic scales to match the chords. For example, if we were playing over a chord progression from an A major chord to a D major chord, we would switch from an A major pentatonic to a D major pentatonic.

This is when we start to hear the melodic possibilities of the pentatonic scale. We then increase the complexity of the chord progressions by adding more chords, chords from other keys, dominant chords, and modulations. The pentatonic scale will work in any of these situations if you approach it on a chord-by-chord basis.

We’ll also look at using pentatonic shapes to create exciting chord voicing and simple hooks that can be used in songs because so much of a lead guitarist’s responsibility in a band combines rhythm playing and lead playing, sometimes both simultaneously.

Our goal is to create well-rounded and versatile players who have their voice on the guitar no matter what style they play.

For advanced players, there is even more to offer when using the pentatonic scales. We use the pentatonic shapes in nontraditional ways by superimposing them over different chords to bring out other scale notes.

For example, if you play an E major pentatonic over an A major chord, you’re now playing the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th, which has a much more unusual sound when used that way. This way, we can utilize the pentatonic scale to improvise over more complex chords like minor 7, flat five, and altered dominant chords.

We can also dive into the dominant pentatonic scale, which offers students five new shapes and a world of sonic possibilities.

What types of lessons and resources can members expect to find on your platform, and how do these cater to various skill levels?

The platform’s primary focus is the Pentatonic Way system, which teaches guitarists to understand the neck in a simple way that can be used to create amazing-sounding guitar parts when improvising or composing. So every lesson or resource that we provide is geared towards supporting that.

The center of that learning is our How to Solo Over Everything course, which teaches the Pentatonic Way system step by step using high-quality videos and guided backing tracks.

The course is designed for players who can handle chord progressions and want to learn to solo using a structured, thought-out method. By the end of the course, students will understand how to solo over any chord progression like a pro without the need for deep music theory knowledge or a ton of scales.

While our How to Solo Over Everything course teaches how to use the pentatonic scale over chord progressions, our Woodshed course teaches students how to play the pentatonic scale. There are lessons on finger exercises, scale sequences, classic pentatonic licks, and advanced techniques. Combined with the lessons students learn in the main course, these lessons will create a well-rounded and confident play that can flow all over the neck effortlessly.

We also supply a growing number of Guided Backing Tracks of popular songs that visually display which pentatonic scale could be used for each chord so that students can simply play along with the track and hear how the scales and chords interact.

These were a massive help as I learned how to play this way. By externalizing the need to remember which shape I should be playing, I quickly began to internalize the sounds and patterns and play real music.

I’ve also written a couple of books designed to make learning and understanding the guitar easier, “The Guitar Simplified: An Illustrated Guide to Music Theory and The Guitar” and “The Lefty Guitarist’s Survival Handbook.”

Finally, we have a weekly guitar hang where students can video chat, ask questions, get feedback, and work through anything holding them back from progressing on the guitar. They describe these lessons as their weekly “booster shot” that inspires and motivates them to practice and learn their instruments.

Many guitarists struggle with staying motivated. How does your website help learners stay engaged and inspired on their musical journey?

One thing that helps keep players motivated to improve is community and weekly jam sessions. It began on Twitter as the Pentatonic Way Improv Jam (#PWImprovJam), and it’s been picking up steam every week and building a great community of players worldwide.

So here is how it works. Every Monday, I’ll post a new backing track on Twitter, and guitarists record a video of themselves improving a solo over it, and then they post that as a reply to the original post. They also will reply to each other’s solos and help to build each other up. It’s a simple process, but it does a few important things to help these guitarists keep improving:

• First, It gives them something to show up for guitar-wise every week. It’s easier to practice if there is a reason to do it beyond simply trying to improve. Sometimes that goal is a gig or jamming with someone locally, but not everyone has those opportunities. So this weekly jam can help to be that goal for those people.
• Second, it builds a community around guitar that is positive. A lot of times, the guitar community can be a secretive and hostile place where players are very competitive and will cut each other down in an attempt to make themselves seem better than they are. We’ve been lucky that everyone in our community is so positive and always responds to each other in sincerely uplifting ways. This is something that I feel we all need these days.
• Finally, it is very interesting to see so many different interpretations of the same backing track from this many guitarists. Some people play fast, some play slow, some are melody-based, and some are lick-based. I know that I will always learn a few things each week from other player’s submissions that I will attempt to work into my playing, and I’m sure that others are doing the same. We’ve even had moments when one player will comment on a section in another’s solo, and that player will respond with a video explaining the lick or idea to them. That’s amazing!

They say that people will come for the knowledge, but they will stay for the community, and I love the growing community we’ve been blessed with.

The online learning space is vast. What methods or strategies have you found most effective in teaching guitar online?

There are three things that I think about when preparing my online lessons:

I’m a multimedia developer for a major online university, so I understand the importance of presenting information to students in multiple ways (video, audio, text, interactive content) because everyone processes information differently. I always attempt to consider which ways I can deliver a lesson that will make it most understood by the student.

I also consider cognitive load, the amount of information our working memory can process at any given time. So I’ll try to limit the amount of things students need to remember when working on a lesson. The Guided Backing Tracks are a great example of this lesson preparation. Students can play with a backing track and follow the chord progression without having to initially remember which scale goes along with each chord or figure out where they are in the progression if they get lost because all that information is laid out for them. They can simply improvise and listen to what they are creating.

The third thing, especially with guitar, is that doing is better than watching. You can watch many YouTube videos about scales, licks, theory, or improvisation techniques. However, applying that knowledge with your fingers on the fretboard will make sense and stick in your memory.

Are there any notable success stories or memorable experiences from your members that you’d like to share?

The experience that I love the most, and it happens every time that I teach this system of understanding how the guitar and music work, is when the student finishes our first jam and will say something to the effect of, “It’s all making sense now, I can see how it all works, and I can’t believe how simple it is.”

They can see how much better they can be if they keep following this path and wish that someone had told them long ago.

I am also a success story by using the Pentatonic Way approach.

I remember going to a jam recently with some new players and wondering what we would be playing.

In the past, in a situation like that, I would hope to play some cool fast licks, and when I played slowly, hopefully, I would not hit any terrible out-of-key notes that would let them know that I couldn’t keep up with the changes.

This time, however, I found that I could follow the chords, and not only that, I could see every note that I could possibly play during that chord. I had fun exploring new pathways and creating licks and chord voicings in real-time. And I could do that with every chord as they passed by.

It felt like that moment in The Matrix when time slowed down, and Neo could see every possibility and react however he chose to. I had so much fun playing that night and left with a new sense of confidence.

Aspiring guitarists often face challenges in mastering techniques. How does your platform assist learners in overcoming these hurdles?

We have an area of the site called The Woodshed, and it’s a companion to any of our teachings. While our courses will show you how to match the pentatonic scale up to any chords, The Woodshed shows you a collection of licks and techniques you can use with the pentatonic scale.

There are lessons in there that focus on breaking the pentatonic scales into smaller sequences (groups of 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s, and 6’s), there are lessons on techniques (bending & sliding notes, etc.), and there are lessons on tradition and nontraditional licks that can be played using the pentatonic scale.

The Woodshed aims to train your hands to do what you want them to do when you like them to do it. By making these sorts of things easier for you to call upon in the moment, you can achieve a state of flow when soloing.

Can you provide a sneak peek into any upcoming features or enhancements that members can look forward to on “The Pentatonic Way”?

Since creating the first Pentatonic Way course, I have learned more about teaching the system effectively. I began teaching group workshops to guitarists and watched how they reacted to the lessons and what questions they would ask. By doing this, I could adjust my teaching approach and reorder how the lessons are presented so students are more successful.

So now I’ve completely revamped the How to Solo Over Everything course, and I’m very excited about the results. I’m confident that it will take a guitarist who feels comfortable playing rhythm guitar and is just beginning to solo, and it will give them a clear pathway to advance their learning.

It will also work wonders for the guitarist who has already begun to learn to solo by memorizing scales and licks but still feels confused and frustrated about why they aren’t improving.

I believe that students will experience many “Aha!” moments during this course and feel relieved that they have finally found an approach to understanding the guitar that will allow them to improve their playing every time they pick up the guitar, forever.

Lastly, for those aspiring guitarists out there, what advice or words of encouragement would you offer to help them progress on their musical path?

My musical journey has been very long at this point, and there are so many good bits of advice I’ve picked up along the way. In the spirit of the pentatonic scale, I’ll attempt to choose five tips that I feel might be most useful to aspiring guitarists.

1. Don’t give up. Playing guitar is a marathon, not a sprint.
2. Don’t stress whether your playing is good enough; embrace the process of getting better and remember to have fun with it.
3. Laugh at your mistakes; playing guitar isn’t life or death.
4. Play with other people as often as you can. You’ll learn as much in 1 or 2 hours of jamming with someone as you might in 1 or 2 weeks practicing alone.
5. Expose yourself to as much music as possible, regardless of genre or style. It will make you a well-rounded musician and give you a more bottomless well to pull from for your ideas.

Stay connected with The Pentatonic Way and join their vibrant community of guitar enthusiasts! Follow their social media channels for the latest updates, tips, and inspiration on mastering the pentatonic scale and unleashing your creativity on the guitar. Don’t miss out on exclusive content, live sessions, and engaging discussions. Follow The Pentatonic Way today and take your guitar journey to the next level!

The Pentatonic Way – Encore

In conclusion, “The Pentatonic Way” offers a refreshing approach to learning the guitar, focusing on simplifying complex concepts and empowering students to unleash their creativity. Through innovative teaching methods and a supportive community, guitarist enthusiasts can embark on a journey of musical discovery like never before. Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced player, “The Pentatonic Way” provides the tools, resources, and guidance needed to excel on your musical path. Join the community today and revolutionize your guitar playing experience!

Special thanks to Neil Santos for sharing his insights and experiences with us. Your passion for guitar and dedication to innovative teaching methods have undoubtedly inspired many aspiring musicians. We appreciate your time and contribution to our community.

For more in-depth interviews like this, check out our most recent GMG interview with the incredible and inspirational Peter Dankelson.