Guitar players often ask me what makes pentatonic scale patterns major or minor. The answer is that the pentatonic scale is either major or minor depending on which note is functioning as the
For example, the solos in the songs “Let It Be” by The Beatles and “Breakdown” by Tom Petty both use the same scale. It’s the C major/A minor pentatonic scale, which consists of the notes C-D-E-G-A or A-C-D-E-G depending on whether you start on C or A.
In “Breakdown” by Tom Petty, the primary chord in the progression is Am and the tonic note in the pentatonic scale riff is A, so you call it
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The C major and A minor pentatonic scales consist of the very same notes and patterns. The difference is which note is functioning as the tonic (primary pitch).
You see the same pentatonic notes and pattern in these diagrams. In the first diagram, you see where the C note and C chord tones are located in the pattern. You see where the A note and A minor chord tones are located in the second pattern. This is just pentatonic pattern 1, but all related pentatonic patterns that connect to pattern 1 are also either C major or A minor.
When C is the tonic, then the other scale notes are major intervals in relation to C. Specifically they are root, 2nd, major 3rd, 5th, major 6th. When A is the tonic, then the scale’s structure changes because all the scale notes are thought of in relation to A. In this case, the scale formula is root, minor 3rd, 4th, 5th, minor 7th.
A Minor Pentatonic Notes On The Guitar Fretboard Pdf Diagram
Every pentatonic key can have one of two possible tonalities. The tonalities are called “relative major” and “relative minor”. C and Am are relative. So are G and Em, A and F#m, D and Bm, F and Dm, etc. In pentatonic scale pattern one (as I teach it in my Fretboard Theory guitar theory program) the first note is always the relative minor and the second note is always the relative major no matter what key or position you’re in.The third essential scale is the minor pentatonic scale. This scale is probably the most commonly used scale amongst guitar players. It’s very easy to learn and has a lot of applications in many genres of music.
The minor pentatonic scale comes directly from our minor scale. All you have to do is remove the 2nd and 6th scale degrees from the minor scale. Once these two notes are removed, you’re left with a minor pentatonic scale. In an A minor scale, the 2nd scale degree is a B and the 6th is an F. Remove these two notes and you’re left with A C D E G, which is an A minor pentatonic scale.
Just like the minor scale, the minor pentatonic scale has a relative major pentatonic scale. This can be found using the same method used to find the relative major of the minor scale. The relative major pentatonic of the A minor pentatonic scale is C major.
The Minor Pentatonic Scale Positions On Guitar — Guitar Music Theory Lessons By Ry Naylor
Here are the most commonly used shapes for the C major pentatonic and A minor pentatonic scales. The black dots represent the root notes (the C notes in the C major pentatonic scale and the A notes in the A minor pentatonic scale) of each scale.
Since the C major and A minor pentatonic scales share the same notes, we can put the two shapes together to create an extended A minor pentatonic scale shape.
This shape is actually essentially the same as the extended minor scale. It just omits the 2nd and 6th scale degrees. The red notes (and the black notes) dictate which notes are pentatonic within the A minor scale.
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Here’s another way to visualize the scale shape. Note the red (pentatonic) and black (root) notes within the minor scale shape. For the scale to be pentatonic, you would just have to omit the white notes in this shape.
Just like the other scale shapes we looked at, you can move this entire shape to other keys as well. Just move the shape so that the root notes line up with the root note of the key you want to play in. If you wanted to use this scale shape in the key of B minor, you would move the entire shape up 2 frets.
Are you looking for more lead guitar lessons and relevant jam-tracks? Guitareo is Nate Savage’s step-by-step video training system. It has some great songs for lead guitar and it also covers many other important styles of music including rock, country, fingerstyle, metal, classical, bluegrass, jazz, and more. Best of all it includes a huge library of original jam-tracks so you can apply everything to music.For example, a C Major Scale is made up of C - D - E - F - G - A - B. We count C as 1, D as 2, E as 3 and so on.
How To Use Minor And Major Pentatonic Scales In Guitar Playing
All of these notes also appear in the C Natural Minor Scale, so you could also think of it as a cut down Natural Minor Scale if you’d prefer.
So, if you’re already happy with the minor pentatonic and feel no need to broaden your sound with more options or feel like you have enough creative options already, then the rest of this article is not for you!
Note that they’re not the same numbers, or scale degrees as the minor pentatonic scale, which means you’ll have gaps in different places to the minor pentatonic.
Pentatonic Scale Guitar: The Ultimate Guide
If you compare that to our C Major Pentatonic scale, you’ll see they’re the same notes, just in a different order. C Major Pentatonic and A Minor Pentatonic are relative scales - the same thing played in a different context.
In practical terms, that means the two scales are interchangeable, so with a bit of music theory knowledge, you can make a Major Pentatonic shape sound like a Minor Pentatonic Shape and vice versa. We’ll talk more about that in a minute.
The minor pentatonic scale sounds great over songs in a minor key. For example, if the song is in A minor, the A minor pentatonic scale will work really well.
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Similarly, any time you’re play over a minor chord, the parallel minor pentatonic scale will work nicely. For example, if the chords progression is Dm - Em - Am, I could match the chords by soloing with a D minor Pentatonic, E Minor Pentatonic and A Minor Pentatonic scale.
That’s the basic use cases, but you can get some other cool effects by playing the minor pentatonic over chords other than straight minor chords, so take this more as a starting point rather than a rule.
The first is to take a song in either C Major or A Minor and use both the C Major Pentatonic and A minor Pentatonic to solo over the song.
When Learning How To Solo With Guitar, Do Recommend Pentatonic Scales 1st Or Focus On Major And Minor Scales?
In effect, you’re really just using one scale, because both scales only have A - C - D - E - G in them, but this is a great way to give you different ways to play the same notes for more creative options.
The left half is the C Major Pentatonic shape and the right half is the A Minor Pentatonic shape. Note that the root notes would be either A or C, depending on whether you’re playing in a song in the key of C Major or A Minor.
Let’s say you’re doing a solo over a blues in A. You would play the A Minor Pentatonic Scale at times, then move to A Major pentatonic at other times to mix it up.
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It takes practice to make it work, as you may hit some clashing notes depending on the chord you’re playing over, but this can really open up your creative options, as you’d now have the notes from A Minor Pentatonic:
In practice, I tend to only use Major Pentatonic for the occasional bit of extra colour rather than considering it a go to scale for every solo, but used in the right way it can really bring an extra dimension to your solos and melodies that really take it to the next level., articleState:, data:, slug:academics-the-arts, categoryId:33662}, , slug:music, categoryId:33730}, , slug:instruments, categoryId:33731}, , slug:guitar, categoryId:33735, title:How to Use the Pentatonic Scale as Major and Minor on the Guitar, strippedTitle:how to use the pentatonic scale as major and minor on the guitar, slug:how-to-use-the-pentatonic-scale-as-major-and-minor-on-the-guitar, canonicalUrl:, seo:, content:The pentatonic scale can function as both major and minor on the guitar. You can start with E minor pentatonic, but the same notes and patterns can also produce G major pentatonic.rnrnTo understand how this works, look at this example. Notice how both an E minor (Em) chord and a G major chord fit into pentatonic pattern 1 in the open position. The gray dots indicate the notes of the chords.rn
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