Download Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales

Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales
The word "pentatonic" comes from the Greek word pente meaning five
and tonic meaning tone. Pentatonic scales are the staple of rock music
and are used across the world in jazz, blues, country and bluegrass as well
as West African music, African-American spirituals and children's songs.
This fact makes the pentatonic scale a very important element of learning
to play a musical instrument.
So, what are pentatonic scales?
Technically speaking, any scale composed of five notes can be called a
pentatonic scale (penta = five and tonic = notes). In the real world,
however, learning only two different pentatonic scales will cover 99.9%
of the playing situations that you will encounter. These two scales are
referred to as the MAJOR PENTATONIC and the MINOR
PENTATONIC.
Major Pentatonic Scale
To create a major pentatonic scale all you have to do is remove the 4th
and 7th notes from a major scale. This would leave the intervals below.
1 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 6 – 1 (octave)
So in the key of C major the notes would be:
C – D – E – G – A – C (octave)
Now that we know the Major Pentatonic Scale lets try improvising with
this scale over a I – IV – V – I or a V – IV – I – V chord progression.
Minor Pentatonic Scale
To create a minor pentatonic scale all you have to do is remove the 2nd
and 6th notes from a natural minor scale. This would leave the intervals
below.
1 – b3 – 4 – 5 – b7 – 1 (octave)
So in the key of A minor the notes would be:
A – C – D – E – G – A (octave)
Now that we know the Minor Pentatonic Scale lets try improvising with
this scale over a I – IV – V – I chord progression (also known as a
standard blues progression).