Modal pentatonics

Introduction

Members practicing this lesson: tunc da51d bassman

One of the easiest scales for guitarists to use is the minor pentatonic. One of the trickiest way to improvise is with modes. Today I will explain how to use our friendly pentatonics in a modal contest and use them to sound modal in an easy way.

I - Minor pentatonics

A minor pentatonic is a 5 note scale. Here is how a minor pentatonic is built:

Root, minor 3rd, 4th, 5th and minor 7th.

That means that if we were to build a 4 note chord that would work over a minor pentatonic, we would have a minor 7th chord. (Root, minor 3rd, 5th and minor 7th)

There are 5 positions (or boxes) of minor pentatonic scales. Each position start with one of the notes of the pentatonic scale. Before we go further, I strongly recommend that you memorize these positions. If you are not familiar with these positions, work on Kris’s 3 series lessons on pentatonics. They can be found on the one on one section of the website.

II – Modes

Modes are scales. We usually deal with what are called the seven church modes. Historically, churches in ancient Europe used to compose songs in those seven different modes. They would compose hymnals which would start off of all the seven notes of a C major scale.
That’s where our modes come from. There are seven notes in C major, therefore seven modes that are extracted from a C major scale. Here they are with their names:

C Ionian (or Major scale)
D Dorian
E Phrygian
F Lydian
G Mixolydian
A Aeolian (or natural minor scale commonly called “minor scale”)
B Locrian

- = half step (1 fret)
_ = whole step (2 frets)

C Ionian (or Major scale)
C_D_E-F_G_A_B-

D Dorian
D_E-F_G_A_B-C_

E Phrygian
E-F_G_A_B-C_D_

F Lydian
F_G_A_B-C_D_E-

G Mixolydian
G_A_B-C_D_E-F_

A Aeolian (or natural minor scale commonly called “minor scale”)
A_B-C_D_E-F_G_

B Locrian
B-C_D_E-F_G_A_

This enables us to see where the whole steps and half steps are placed in the modes.

III – Modal chord progressions

A modal chord progression is a chord progression that would work with one (and only one) mode. In order to create a modal progression, we need to hear within the chord progression all the notes that are characterizing a given mode.

It’s helpful to first analyze side by side all the seven modes to see which notes are differencing them from each other. If we were to write down all the seven modes starting off with C as a root here’s what we would have:

C Ionian C _ D _ E – F _ G _ A _ B -

C Dorian C _ D - Eb_ F _ G _ A - Bb_

C Phrygian C – Db_Eb_ F_ G – Ab_ Bb_

C Lydian C _ D _ E _ F#- G _ A _ B-

C Mixolydian C _ D _ E – F _ G _ A - Bb _

C Aeolian C _ C - Eb –F _ G - Ab _ Bb _

C Locrian C – Db_Eb_ F - Gb_Ab _ Bb_

Analyzing what we have above will enable us to classify the seven modes into “chord families”

Maj 7th chords (Root, Maj 3rd, 5th, Maj 7th)

- Ionian
- Lydian

Min 7th chords (Root, min 3rd, 5th, min 7th)

- Dorian
- Phrygian
- Aeolian

7th chords (Root, Maj 3rd, 5th, min 7th)

- Mixolydian

Min 7th b5th chords or half diminished chords (Root, min 3rd, flat 5th, min 7th)

- Locrian

IV – Modal pentatonics

Now that we analyzed these modes, we can see that a minor pentatonic would fit over 3 of the seven church modes:

-Dorian
-Phrygian
-Aeolian

Therefore we can use these 3 minor pentatonics starting off on the root of the relative Dorian, Phrygian and Aeolian modes of a given chord progression. Combining the notes of these three pentatonics will give us enough notes to give our improvisation a modal feel.

The backing tracks are all based on the root of G. Here are the 3 minor pentatonics that we may use on them:

G Ionian
• A minor pentatonic (A Dorian)
• B minor pentatonic (B Phrygian)
• E minor pentatonic (E Aeolian)

G Dorian
• G minor pentatonic (G Dorian)
• A minor pentatonic (A Phrygian)
• D minor pentatonic (D Aeolian)

G Phrygian
• G minor pentatonic (G Phrygian)
• C minor pentatonic (C Aeolian)
• F minor pentatonic (F Dorian)

G Lydian
• B minor pentatonic (B Aeolian)
• E minor pentatonic (E Dorian)
• F# minor pentatonic (F# Phrygian)

G Mixolydian
• A minor pentatonic (A Aeolian)
• D minor pentatonic (D Dorian)
• E minor pentatonic (E Phrygian)

G Aeolian
• G minor pentatonic (G Aeolian)
• C minor pentatonic (C Dorian)
• D minor pentatonic (D Phrygian)

G Locrian
• Bb minor pentatonic (Bb Dorian)
• C minor pentatonic (C Phrygian)
• F minor pentatonic (F Aeolian)

Good luck!
--David

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