RANDY RHOADS’ PLAYING was infused with brilliant technique, cutting-edge musical adventurousness and a powerfully emotional delivery. On Ozzy Osbourne’s 1980 solo debut, Blizzard of Ozz, and its follow-up, 1981’s Diary of a Madman, Rhoads laid down the gauntlet for a new approach to the instrument and established a standard for metal guitar playing that still holds to this day, despite his death in 1982.
The minor pentatonic scale was a staple of Randy’s solo improvisations, but he was also schooled in the fundamental modes, which are the seven different harmonic orientations, or aspects, of the major scale. In his solos, Randy often combined elements of minor pentatonic, the blues scale and minor modes, such as Dorian and Aeolian.
Let’s begin with a look at minor pentatonic in the key of A (A minor pentatonic scale: A, C, D, E, G). FIGURE 1 shows this scale played across all six strings in 5th position. A great way to practice this scale — and one of the
