This article serves as a reference for navigating major pentatonic scales all over the guitar fretboard. There are three ways youll want to learn your major. For instance, if you play the chitafra starting with your 1st finger in the 10th fret youll be playing a d minor pentatonic. Before the solo starts, the track plays through the rhythm part for several measures tab included at the bottom of this page. If you leave the blue notes out, you have pentatonic boxes. Cs relative minor pentatonic scale, a minor pentatonic, begins on the 6 th scale degree of the major pentatonic scale shown above. Chord progressions for pentatonic melodies the essential. But theres a simpler way start with a major pentatonic scale notes. The root notes a in these examples are circled so that you can learn their locations. The solution below shows the a major pentatonic scale on the piano, treble clef and bass clef. The first position e shape its because its the most comfortable shape to play in. If you are playing in a major key, then use the relative minor pentatonic scale.
The pentatonic scale follows the primary tonic chord in a progression. This week i run through the underlying principles that exist in all pentatonic scales on the guitar pdf attached below. Later on we shall take a look at the minor pentatonic. Intermediate guitar lesson pentatonic scale picking exercises. If you are stuck in the pentatonic box then this is the way out of it. In this tutorial instead of using note names ill refer to scale degree numbers 1 7 of the major and minor scales. The numerical name for a scale degree comes from its position in the order of the scale from low to high. The most used pentatonic scale is a subset of the major or its relative minor scale.
Master the minor pentatonic scale using the whole fretboard. Guitar scales printable charts of the most commonly used. It tabs out the pentatonic scales in all 12 major and minor keys. The relationship between the notes of the f minor pentatonic scale and the root of the chord remain the same. In this lesson, we are going to be in the key of g major. How to construct major and minor pentatonic scales music. So, for example, try creating a few guitar riffs using the g minor pentatonic scale in the third position beginning on the 8th fret. Comping with pentatonic scales now there is a ocean of online, magazine, and video lessons about how to comp with pentatonic scales. The lesson steps then explain how to construct the scale using the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th major scale notes. Learn a complete blues solo based on the pentatonic scale, written and recorded by francesco cagnacci.
This scale has its low root played with the first finger on the low e string. This is normal, because the notes are positioned differently in the minor pentatonic scale then in the major pentatonic scale. The next lesson will focus on alternate picking exercises using the pentatonic scale forms. This lesson will help you build licks that move smoothly between the two scales, in a blues context but you can use what you learn in any style. Learn major and minor pentatonic scales in all keys 2. Dec, 20 a lot of guitar players use only one pentatonic position shape. Pentatonic scales trumpet pdf the following article is an excerpt from my book, recycling in jazz improvisation which can be downloaded as a pdf in my books section of. How to play the pentatonic scale on guitar dummies.
The 5 major pentatonic positions deft digits guitar lessons. This lesson will help you build licks that move smoothly between the two scales, in a. You could play these licks over a iivv blues progression where a7 is the i. This is an important quality of the pentatonic scale and goes a long way toward explaining why the pentatonic scale is so versatile and can sound good over virtually any chord progression. Youll have to move your hand quite a bit as you ascend and descend these scales.
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave such as the major scale and minor scale pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations. The two combine to provide a pattern with a root on each string. They are still used all over the world, for example traditional music, country music, blues and metal. This scale is transpositional and can be played in, and should be practiced in, all keys.
Strum a g minor chord, then play with the notes in the pattern. The major pentatonic scale may be considered as an incomplete major scale as this scale removes 2 notes off the major scale. It uses the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth steps of the major scale. But by all means, practicing the 3 notes per string scale forms with the segovia scales as well can be a great all around workout. And look again at one of the licks we did a while back to see how it fits in this pentatonic and blues scale mold example 40. How to use the pentatonic scale as major and minor on the. Combining minor and major pentatonic scales guitarhabits. D minor pentatonic has the same notes as f major pentatonic and so it goes. The intervals in minor pentatonic are root or 1, b3rd, 4th, 5th, and b7th. There will be a lot more stuff to come, so these basic diagrams showing where your fingers should go when you play the major and minor pentatonic scales will be the first of many free resources to come. For your convenience, i have included a pdf of all the pentatonics. Major pentatonic scale the major pentatonic scale shares five notes with the major scale. A minor pentatonic can be used as a lead scale over chord progressions in a minor, c major, and a blues blues can imply a specific, sixnote scale, as well as a chord progression.
So basically, as with major scales, the minor pentatonic scale is the relative 6th minor of the major pentatonic scale. That will keep your root note of the minor pentatonic scale the same as the major pentatonic scale. So take any major scale 1234567, eliminate the 4th and 7th notes 12356, and youve got a pentatonic scale. Use the e minor pentatonic scale when playing 12 bar blues in either e major or e minor, it works equally well over both. You just need to know how the root note changes in the pattern. The major pentatonic consists of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th notes of a major scale. Each one connects to the next and continues down and up the fretboard. Dec 04, 2009 try to follow the picking indication from the video for now and dont forget the pdf download for the lesson as well. The pentatonic scale compendia found in section one list all three hundre d thirty pentatonic scales 2 that contain the note c. Notice how both an e minor em chord and a g major chord fit into pentatonic pattern 1 in the open position. A minor pentatonic contains scale degrees 1, b3, 4, 5, and b7. If playing in c major use a minor pentatonic also know as c major pentatonic. This entry was posted in resource and tagged 3 notes per string, arpeggio, chord, download, fingering, maj7, major 7th, minor pentatonic, pdf, pentatonic scale, positions, scale on october 12, 2014 by jens.
The a minor pentatonic comes from the natural minor scale. And you can find the relative major pentatonic scale of a minor. Not bad for a scale thats two notes shy of a major. I also have the major pentatonic scales pdf, but dont find the. Often you can use one pentatonic scale, play around with it, and successf ully do a complete solo using just that scale. Once learned, the player can immediately start improvising rock guitar. You can play the major pentatonic scale over almost any major or dominant chord without clashing with the chord. It leaves more of your brain power available to decide what to play when you dont.
If you are playing in a minor key, use that minor pentatonic. Upsidedown scale studies for improvisation upsidedown scale. Intro to the minor pentatonic scale, the caged system, scale degrees vs. Pentatonic scales pdf and instructional video guitar alliance. To understand how this works, look at this example. Craig fraedrichs free pdf download scale studies for improvisation.
The exercises in this book use the major scale, pentatonic scale, blues scale, and chromatic scale. A pentatonic scale is a five note scale derived from the major scale. The minor pentatonic scale is constructed from five notes of the natural minor scale. Open d tuning major and minor pentatonic shapes diagrams. Which you can find by taking the major pentatonic scale, for example the c major pentatonic scale, and playing the same notes but starting from the 5th note of the scale, in this case the a.
The pentatonic scale is use primarily used for soloing. Trumpet scales pdf ontario public library guidelines. The scales are used often for composing melodies and for improvisation. The most important of these are both major and minor pentatonic. Pentatonic scales pdf and instructional video guitar. Dec 05, 2009 these scale forms are also the way you will see that most advanced guitar scale technique is performed on the guitar because of how well they lay out across the fretboard and the consistency of the picking. There are both pentatonic major and minor the minor is slightly more often used. The minor pentatonic scale using scale tones 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the natural minor scale by omitting 2nd and 6th notes. And the minor pentatonic took 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 degrees from the minor scale. However the major g pentatonic scale pattern is the exact same pattern in the same fret position.
Use the g major pentatonic in folk, country and rock in the key of g when you dont want the blues sound. Intermediate guitar lesson major pentatonic scales. The major pentatonic scale is similar to major diatonic scale 7 notes per octave, but without the fourth and the seventh note. The 14 most common and usable guitar scales printable and ready to use 1. Major and minor pentatonic in blues guitar styles creative guitar. The best way to learn them is to choose one scale that appeals to you and spend a considerable.
For instance, lets take a look at the c major scale. So even if you hit a nonchord tone at a lessthanoptimal moment these notes will be relatively forgiving. You dont need to learn a bunch of scales you need to learn all the different ways of playing and applying the pentatonic and major scale patterns. As your soloing gets more sophisticated, the less you have to hunt for the box patterns the better off youll be. The 5 major pentatonic scale shapes positions guitarhabits. Something that cannot be said of the two notes of the major scale that are not included in the major pentatonic scale the 4th and 7th. Using minor and major pentatonic together effectively minor and major pentatonic work great together in major keys and can say a lot more than if you were to just use one scale. Pentatonic scales for guitar a pentatonic scale has just 5 notes. The word pentatonic implies that there are five notes in these scales, and that is correct. A pentatonic scale is made up of five notes per octave penta five. The major and minor pentatonic scales can be interchanged to offer a fantastic blend of. The difference between diatonic and pentatonic scales.
Compared to the major scale of the same key parallel minor, the aeolian mode has three notes lowered by a half step. The pentatonic scale chose 5 from these notes and created another scale, this is why it is called penta. Using the major scales c major scale for the 4 chord song g major scale for sit with me d major scale for everyone. Look at the scale diagram below and notice the position of. For a quick summary of this topic, have a look at pentatonic scale. The minor pentatonic scale is one of the most commonly scales used in rock, blues, country and jazz music. Clicking here and on the image below will open a pdf file of the guitar major scale chart that prints nicely. The natural minor is the aeolian mode of the relative major scale. There are three ways youll want to learn your major pentatonic scale forms.
The pentatonic scale pentatonic scales have only five notes penta means five. But for the purposes of this post, you wont need to know anything more than the standard major pentatonic derived by eliminating the 4th and 7th notes of a major scale. You can say that the chords c, f, and g are diatonic to the key of c, but the chord d is not but dm is. A major pentatonic scale diagrams a major pentatonic fretboard diagram. Scale compendium, often referred to as the major 326 or minor 330 pentatonic scale 4, play the shapes found in the exercises, but replace the written notes with the notes of your chos en scale. This article and interactive web app help you learn all of the pentatonic scale diagrams.
You can play a pentatonic scale by walking your fingers across the neck at any one of these positions, playing 2 notes per string. Now we will add one note to the minor pentatonic scale and turn it into the sixnote blues scale. The scale illustrated on the right is the most common basic box position. How can i play a pentatonic scale over a song that uses chords from the major scale. Above is the a major pentatonic scale shown in 5 positions. The pdf is for members only, so youll need to login to download it. Major chords 1 ionian major scale 2 digital patterns. Caged does a great job of associating major chords with pentatonic scale positions, but you. Thats great if you start out with soloing, in fact its better to stay with that for a while to explore all the possibilities and to really be able to improvise with that one shape. The pentatonic scale is a major scale excluding the 4th and 7th degrees. You can get more diagrams in the tuning of your choice by using my interactive web app here. C d e g a c formula 2 2 3 2 3 now lets look at the complete, 5position diagram of the pentatonic scale. It also works pretty well over a major and c blues. A minor pentatonicblues scale weeping willow guitar.
The root notes in this case a, are shown by the black dots, the other notes in the scale are shown by the red dots. D minor pentatonic has the same notes as f major pentatonic. For this chapter we will be considering minor pentatonic only. The minor pentatonic scale of a key can be found and played in the same pattern 3 frets below the major scale. The guitar major scale is happy upbeat and useful in a variety of styles of music. This title the samples are in pdf format and require adobe acrobat reader to be installed. If you look closely, youll notice the pentatonic scale doesnt contain any semitones 12 steps. The best way to learn them is to choose one scale that appeals to you and spend a considerable amount of time an d energy practicing and thinking of ways. This makes it easy to transpose the scale into different keys and will help give you a broader view of the concepts.
Pentatonic scale has notes that when played generate a pleasant melody, even if it is just the. However, it starts on the tonic 1st note of the scale of g. The minor pentatonic scale by paul tauterouff the minor pentatonic scale is one of the most commonly scales used in rock, blues, country and jazz music. These are the four most common scales in pop and rock music. The interactive app below lets you generate fretboard charts of pentatonic scales in all keys with custom. You can start with e minor pentatonic, but the same notes and patterns can also produce g major pentatonic. If you dont already have the free adobe acrobat reader. Pentatonic scale shape exercises around the fretboard. The intervals of the major scale that create half steps 4th7th are removed from the scale. Note that a minor pentatonic has identical notes with c major pentatonic but in different order. The pentatonic scale can function as both major and minor on the guitar. The pentatonic scale, major and minor free piano lessons.
Now lets combine the notes of the minor pentatonic and major pentatonic scale and create some soloing ideas. Using minor and major pentatonic together effectively. The lack of the major scales 4th and 7th scale tones makes the pentatonic sound wonderfully generic. As you will learn, these patterns can be transferred to all keys. The first scale you learn is the a minor pentatonic.
Comments hi klaus, i like to play pentatonic scales. For example, the chords to the c major scale are cdmemfgambmb5. There are a few reasons that the penatonic scales are the short cut for the scales. Each major pentatonic scale has a relative minor pentatonic scale attached to it. There are a total of 430 finger exercises in this book. Notice that the major pentatonic took 5 notes from the major scale, as we said, and were 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 degrees. Stay tuned if these free lessons help you, please donate to keep new ones coming daily. Below is a download link for the pentatonic scale pdf. Chapter 6 major scales and key signatures 111 scale degrees and solfege because there are seven different notes in a major scale, there are seven scale degrees. I have an entire series of lessons on the pentatonic scales in the intermediate. For example, if you went down in pitch by 1 fret, you would have the b major pentatonic scale.
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