Pentatonic scales make an excellent choice when soloing over chord progressions that contain minor seventh chords, making for great musical possibilities and soloing moments.
Playing these scale shapes will also help strengthen the pinky finger, which tends to be weaker than its fellow fingers in your guitar hand. Experiment with alternate picking with these scales so as to build strength in this finger.
Shape 1
Shape 1 is our initial pentatonic scale to explore, comprised of C – Eb – F – G – Bb. This closed position scale makes it much simpler to move up and down the neck while also enabling us to play it in any key.
This scale is commonly employed in blues and rock music as it adds an inherently bluesy sound to melody and chords. Many classic tracks such as Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name” and Albert King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign” use this scale for opening riffs and solos, respectively.
To create this scale, we start by eliminating two notes from a diatonic scale and using only those left behind to form a pentatonic scale containing only minor notes – known as minor pentatonic because only minor notes exist within it; additionally, anhemitonic pentatonic means it excludes both second and seventh degrees on its scale degrees.
This pentatonic scale is widely considered one of the easiest to learn. Part of the Hexatonic family, with six notes per octave, it provides great practice in finger independence since all fingers can be played simultaneously on right hand. Furthermore, alternate picking techniques as well as strengthening pinky strength will all benefit greatly when playing this scale.
Shape 2
Pentatonic scales are immensely popular among guitar players as they provide many creative possibilities. One such pentatonic scale, C Minor Pentatonic Scale is often utilized in blues music; its five notes from natural minor scale without its second and sixth degree provide a melodic flow similar to that of playing over C Minor chord.
The C minor pentatonic scale can be played at various positions on the fretboard. You can also shift its pitch up or down by one semitone by moving your index finger one position up or down on the fretboard; repeat this pattern. If this seems cumbersome to you, chord boxes or other fretboard visualizers might help pinpoint where these notes should land on the fretboard.
Use these tools to gain an instantaneous idea of which scale shapes are available and which would best fit you. Try playing each scale over a slow blues chord progression to hear how they sound!
C Minor Pentatonic Scale can be used to play blues songs in many keys; however, not every piece will suit it well; for instance if a tune contains many blue notes in its melody then this might clash with it.
However, playing both scales simultaneously offers an effective solution to this dilemma and will make your solos sound more interesting and distinctive.
Shape 3
Pentatonic scales contain five notes per octave as opposed to the seven notes contained within heptatonic (major and minor scales). Pentatonics can be found in Eastern music traditions like Chinese traditional music, Mongolian throat singing and chants as well as Japanese Buddhist chants and court music (five holed shakuhachi flutes of Japanese shomyo Buddhist chants and gagaku imperial court music) while also predominating in blues music during improvisational solos.
A pentatonic scale differs from diatonic in that it omits two intervals from its base scale. Starting with C Major for instance, one could create an anhemitonic pentatonic scale by eliminating F and B from this base scale and eliminating four pitches that come after those degrees to get to C, G, A and D – the result is known as an anhemitonic pentatonic scale.
Pentatonic scales provide musicians learning bass guitar a crucial tool for creating melodies and riffs, with their major and minor pentatonic scales looking very similar; to make sense of any differences, consider which key center your scale belongs to.
To determine the key of a pentatonic scale, observe its Solfege syllable pattern (Do-Mi-Fa-So-Te-Do) and compare it with the center chord. For instance, if your chord is C major and your scale pattern matches up C minor pentatonic, that scale belongs in C major as well. The same principle holds true when considering minor and major scales with key signature relationships; only differences will arise depending on which note is serving as tonic note.
Shape 4
The third shape of the minor pentatonic scale may be harder to memorise, but it remains an extremely useful scale that will enable you to craft beautiful blues and rock licks with. Furthermore, this scale puts your hands into an optimal position when playing blues scale, adding additional notes into your minor pentatonic scale.
Once you have mastered each shape of the minor pentatonic scale, it is essential to practice them together. Doing this will allow you to develop an understanding of their relationship on the fretboard and will make switching between them much simpler. Solfege syllables may also prove useful while practicing this scale as this helps remind us of each note’s individual sound signature relative to key center “Do”.
Minor pentatonic scale is an invaluable way to craft dynamic melodies, yet it’s equally as beneficial to learn how to combine it with parallel Major and minor pentatonic scales for even greater melodic possibilities. Doing this allows for even greater creative potential when soloing over tunes.
To play this scale, start on the root note of your key and move up or down using intervals as described above. For instance, moving two frets up from G minor pentatonic will yield A minor pentatonic. Conversely, going two frets up from C minor pentatonic will result in F minor pentatonic. By employing both major and minor pentatonic scales effectively combined into your solos you can effectively combine their sounds for an unparalleled sound experience.
Shape 5
This shape is one of five pentatonic scale shapes and is at the core of blues music. Additionally, it makes for excellent improvisation due to its lack of semitone intervals that makes it less dissonant than major pentatonic scale. Used across genres including rock and blues music as it often plays over dominant 7th chords where its flat seventh helps lessen any dissonance caused by minor third of pentatonic scale versus major third of root/tonic chord dissonance.
As opposed to other scale shapes that can only be played over certain chords, this scale can be played over any chord and still sound great. This flexibility gives musicians an incredible advantage when it comes to improvising; they can easily step “outside the key.” Traditionally when musicians improvise they combine scales with chords in the same key; being outside this key opens up new musical avenues of expression.
Minor pentatonic scale is also advantageous as it’s based on the minor scale and therefore allows you to easily combine with minor chords on any instrument, enabling you to play them more comfortably than before. Minor chords are difficult to play on certain instruments but using minor pentatonic will allow you to do it easily.
As part of your study of this scale, we have provided a slow blues chord progression which you can use to practice the different scale shapes. You could start out playing first pentatonic scale shape over chords before switching over to second pentatonic. Take note of how each scale interacts with chords – see which sounds best!