Moving around the neck with Pentatonic scale

When you solo and are playing the minor pentatonic scale at a given fret (for example at the 5th fret), is it "acceptable" or musically correct to slide your hand to any other fret on the neck and continue playing the minor pentatonic. For example if your soloing over a A,D,E chord progression and you are playing the A minor pentatonic scale at the 5th fret, could you slide to another fret and continue your solo say the D minor or E minor pentatonic scale.

My main question is were can I move on the neck while playing a solo with the minor pentatonic so I don't have to stay at one position.

What I remember of dabbling in pentatonic scales (I have no desire to lead or solo, so pentatonics are pretty much lost on me) is that any particular pentatonic scale has 5 positions and shapes, actually, not just one "box". http://guitar.about.com/od/specificlessons/ss/pentatonicscale_4.htm This is probably a more concise picture http://www.cyberfret.com/scales/minor-pentatonic/index.php The shapes fit into each other like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

So if you move the first position to another fret, say the third, now you're playing the first position/shape of Gm pentatonic. But if you are playing Am pentatonic and play the second position/shape 2 frets down, you are still playing Am, just in a different voicing.

You could play anything that sounds good.

The pentatonic scales are indeed in 5 positions. I practice them often, running from one position to the next, usually upwards.

The minor and major pentatonics are related, a good theory book will help you with that as well as the 5 positions of each.

In my practice I also add the b3 on the major pentatonic and the b5 on the minor. It's a nice dissonance to resolve in many songs.

I generally use a lot of pentatonics when improvising rock, blues and country leads or fill-ins. It just sounds right for most songs in those genres.

How and when to apply them? I can't explain it in a post. I've been playing music since I was a kid, and I studied a lot of music theory. I found my way around pentatonics when I was a young sax player, and used a combination of help from other musicians and self-discovery. Then as I learned more music theory, I began to understand what I was doing so I can use it in new situations.

But for starters try this. Over the 12 bar blues progression play nothing but either the major or minor pentatonic in the key you are playing in. Use your ears to hear what sounds good, when it sounds good, and when it doesn't sound good. It's good ear training. When you get tired of that, start expanding your horizons.

Of course, it's better to get lessons from a good teacher.

Notes

I practice the pentatonics. When I do the minors....I practice ascending , one position, all six string & instead of doing the same exact thing backwards, I do the blues scale. I do this as far as I can go up the neck then do the blues scale with a return of straight minor pent.

As posted, there are patterns to use when soloing. Surely, you can use just one pattern over all the chords you mention but this might get boring after a while. So, there are different patterns that keep us from getting bored:). As you asked, you do not want to move this same pattern around the neck as the chord changes. If you do this then you will just be moving the same pattern to a different key. You can use this same pattern over all the chord changes. In your post, you are in the key of A blues, which uses the A minor pentatonic scale. When the band changes from A to D in the progression, you will still play in the A minor pentatonic scale. You may want to move to a different pattern, but you will still be in the A minor pentatonic scale. When the band moves to the E chord progression, you still want the same A minor pentatonic scale. My advice is to learn a couple more of the box patterns so that you can expand your soloing. Also remember that you don't have to always start in say box #1. You can start soloing just about anywhere, any box pattern, as long as you stay withing the scale. Even then, as you advance more, you can start to mix up the minor pentatonic with the major pentatonic :D But, learn things one thing at a time.