When playing leads during the 1 - 4 - 5 progression of a 12-bar blues, you can do leads that sound pretty cool by just staying in the pentatonic scale for the 1-chord......even while the shuffle goes to the 4-chord and the 5-chord. For example, in the Key of E, you can play notes from the E-pentatonic scale while the blues shuffles to the A (the 4) and the B (the 5). The reason for this is that 4 of the notes (the A, D, E, and G) in the A-pentatonic scale (the 4) are also in the E-pentatonic scale (the 1). It turns out that that the 4, 7, 1, and 3 of the E-scale are also the 1, 4, 5, and 7b notes, respectively, in the A-scale .
Similar for 4 of the notes (the B, D, E, and A) in the B-pentatonic scale (the 5). How convenient!!.
If this is confusing, don't feel bad. I had to write out the scales for all 3 of the 1-4-5 chords before I could get it straight.
Sorry for posting this so late.
