Confession #40 - Pentatonic Scales (Part 1)

Pentatonic scales are very commonly used in rock and roll, so you'll want to have a good understanding of them. Fortunately, they are not that difficult to understand or to play.  That's one of the reason for their popularity.

THE MAJOR PENTATONIC SCALE

Penta comes from the Greek language, and means 5, so penta-tonic means 5 tones  Thus a pentatonic sale has, yes you guessed it, 5 tones.

Which 5 tones you ask?  Well, take the C major scale (see Confession #8 - Learn the Major Scale!) and leave out the F and the B and you get the C major pentatonic scale:

[The numbers below the note names are the scale formula (see Confession #27 - Learn the Minor Scale!)]


C Major Scale

C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8
  W   W   H   W   W   W   H

The numbers below the note names are the scale formula (see Confession #27 - Learn the Minor Scale!)


C Major Pentatonic Scale

C - D - E - - - G - A - - - C
1   2   3       5   6       8
  W   W    H+W    W    W+H

Major Pentatonic Pattern #1

You may have already learned this pattern.  If not, take the time to learn it as Pattern #1 is very commonly used.

Major Pentatonic Pattern #1
(Click to Enlarge)

Observe that the root note C is at the 7th fret of your sixth string.  The A at the 5th fret of the sixth string is part of the scale, but I've shown it in dashed lines as it is below the root note.


THE MINOR PENTATONIC SCALE

Let's do the same thing again, but this time start with the A minor scale (see Confession #39 - Back to the Minor Scale!), which is the relative minor scale to the C major scale.

A Minor Scale

A - B - C  - D - E - F  - G  - A
1   2   3b   4   5   6b   7b   8
  W   H    W   W   H    W    W


A Minor Pentatonic Scale

A - - - C  - D - E - -  - G  - A
1       3b   4   5        7b   8
   W+H     W   W    H+W     W


Minor Pentatonic Pattern #1

Again, this pattern will probably look familiar.

Minor Pentatonic Pattern #1
(Click to Enlarge)

Observe that the root note A is at the 5th fret of your sixth string.

I've also shown the Am pentatonic extended box.  We'll discuss where these notes come from in a future confession.  For now, ignore the notes in the dashed lines.

You're probably thinking to yourself, "It's the same pattern as the major pentatonic scale!"  And you would be correct.  The A minor pentatonic scale is the relative minor scale to the C major pentatonic scale, so they do use the same notes.  The difference is which note you treat as the root note of the scale.
So how do you know which scale is which?  If you want to play the minor pentatonic scale, then the root note is under your index finger. If you want to play the major pentatonic scale, then the root note is under your fourth finger.  Note that minor and index both have the letter i in them.  This is the trick to remembering which scale is which.


OBSERVATIONS

Observe that there are only two notes per string, which makes these pentatonic scale patterns easy to play.  This is part of the reason they are so popular!

Observe that by eliminating the notes F and B, we eliminated the half steps from the standard major and minor scale.  If you can remember this fact, then you can easily build a pentatonic scale in any key,  Write out the major or minor scale for that key, and then eliminate the half steps. Boom! There's the pentatonic scale. That's easier then remembering the scale formula.

Next Week's Confession - 12 Bar Blues!