B Natural Minor Scale on Lap Steel

Play the B Natural Minor scale on Lap Steel with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Natural Minor scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the common family.

3 of Lap Steel's 4 open strings belong to B Natural Minor: E (the 4th), G (the flat 6th), A (the flat 7th). The C string falls outside it, and B is not available open. Open, the strings cover C2 to E3.

It is also known as the Aeolian scale.

The standard natural minor scale — melancholic, introspective, and deeply emotive. The most common minor sound in Western music.

Heard in: Pop, rock, classical, metal — the default minor sound of Western music.

It has a steel bar in place of fingers, sliding over the strings rather than pressing them down.

Each position shows the scale notes and their intervals from the root so you can connect the shape to its sound, hear it with audio playback, and practice it in any register. Movable patterns let you transpose the same fingering to other keys once it is learned.

Once a position is under your fingers, link the B Natural Minor scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of B to start improvising and writing with it. Working a scale alongside its chords is the fastest way to make it stick and to hear how it colors a progression.