Minor Pentatonic And Blues Scales Options

[Andrew Cockburn]

The Minor Pentatonic and Blues Scales

Introduction

In this lesson we are going to look at our first scale, the Minor Pentatonic scale (more on the blues part later). In the introduction to scales we went over a few reasons that you might want to learn scales and how important they are to you as a musician. Well particularly for guitar, the Pentatonic is a great scale to learn. It is usually the first scale taught with good reason. It is pretty simple, and it works really well over simple chord progressions, and is a great place to start practicing improvisation for soloing.

Introducing the Minor Pentatonic Scale

The first thing to note about the Pentatonic scale is that it only has 5 notes (hence the Penta- in its name). Now since this is the first scale we have looked at in depth that migh not seem like a big deal, but in fact it is interesting because most scales you will learn inthe future have 7 notes in them. Among other things, this makes the pentatonic scale easier to play and finger because it only has 2 notes on each string. The Pentatonic comes in both major and minor - we will concentrate on the Minor Pentatonic scale in this lesson.

In the scales introduction we found out that any scale can be described by a simple numeric formula, and the Pentatonic scale is no exception to this.

Its formula is: 3 2 2 3 2

Lets see how this works in an example, for instance G Minor Pentatonic.

We start with G as our root note, and add each step of the formula to get the next note:

G + 3 semitones is Bb
Bb + 2 semitones is C
C + 2 semitones is D
D + 3 semitones is F
F + 2 semitones is G

So there you have it - G minor pentatonic is the notes G, Bb, C, D, F, G. You can apply this formula with any other root note to get the exact scale that you want.


On The Fretboard


So how does this look on the guitar? Well, since we have 5 notes, we also have 5 possible boxes or patterns for each key of the Minor Pentatonic, here they all are fr G Minor:












Remember that you can move these patterns up and down the neck to get the exact scale you want. For instance, if you want A minor Pentatonic, then you work it out as follows:

The root note A is 2 semitones up from G, so just move each of these patterns up 2 frets and voila, you have patterns for A minor pentatonic.

Also, the patterns repeat up the neck after the first five - so if you want to go up higher, start again with the first pattern played with the G root note played on the 15th fret instead of the 3rd fret.

The Blues Scale

The blues scale is very closely related to the minor pentatonic scale, and is used unsurprisingly in blues. The blues players often ad an attitional passing note to the pentatonic scale which is technically known as a flattened 5th - that means an extra note in between notes 3 and 4 of the pentatonic scale. This note is called the blue note, and when you add it to the minor pentatonic scale you get the blues scale. Since they are so closely related, I thought I'd mention it here!

Adding in that extra note changes the formula to look like this : 3 2 1 1 3 2, and our example G minor Pentatonic becomes G, Bb, C, Db, D, F, G when rewritten as the blues scale.

Lets look at our boxes again with the blue note included (shown in green just to be awkward!)












The Minor Pentatonic Scale in Action

Ok, now we know how to play the Minor Pentatonic and the Blues scale, lets talk about how we can put them into action. Both the Pentatonic and the Blues scales are particularly suitable for playing Rock and 12 bar blues with. Lets focus on 12 bar blues - a very pretty simple concept that has produced some amazing music over the years. Its elements are simple - a repeating chord sequence, and use of the pentatonic scale.

The chords you use are a type of I, IV, V progression - what that means isn't really important at this stage, but the chords you would use with a G minor or Pentatonic scale would be as follows (One chord represents 1 measure):

G - G - G - G - C - C - G - G - D - C - G - D

With this chord sequence as a backing, you can play sequences of notes from any of the pentatonic boxes and you will get a bluesy kind of improvisation going. For additional blues inspiration, take a look at the Blues section of the Video lessons - Gabriel has out together some awesome blues lessons to get you started!

Thats it - questions and comments in the forum!

 Pentatonic.mp3 ( 151.72K ) Number of downloads: 7787


 Blues.mp3 ( 152.44K ) Number of downloads: 6810

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This post has been edited by Andrew Cockburn: Sep 3 2007, 04:16 AM

[rokchik]

Hey Andrew,

This may have been explained already but I can't seem to wrap my head around this concept at all. Root notes and the scale boxes...I know it's been explained to death...sorry . I kind of did things bass ackwards and had learned the Am pentatonic scale and boxes without really knowing the theory behind it or the actual notes I was playing....I know bad me, slap! Anyways now that I've recognized the error of my ways and have been trying to backtrack I sorta have myself all confused Not sure if i'm really understanding the concept behind how the boxes are derived....or if what I think is going on is actually right. I'll try my best to explain.

Ok I know the formula is 32232 and regarless of what my root note is this will always be the formula for the minor Pentatonic scale but I'll use the G minor scale as my example.

G,Bb, C, D, F, G are the notes in this scale. So when going through the scale boxes, even though I don't always start or finish on G (root note) when moving through them, as long as I am using those notes, following the formula, I'm still in the G minor scale is that correct? (or whatever I choose as the root note for the scale I want to play)

And with regards to the boxes and working out the patterns,(again using G minor Pentatonic) is it fair for me to say that when you move to say the second scale box starting at Bb will the formula then become 22323? By this I mean the next note is still going to be C and then D so on and so forth so your still following the same formula just your starting point moved up one and that this will be true as you move throught the boxes and start on a different note from that scale? not sure if I explained that well or not.....hopefully you'll get what I'm trying to say

thanks

rok

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[steve25]

Hey Andrew,

This may have been explained already but I can't seem to wrap my head around this concept at all. Root notes and the scale boxes...I know it's been explained to death...sorry . I kind of did things bass ackwards and had learned the Am pentatonic scale and boxes without really knowing the theory behind it or the actual notes I was playing....I know bad me, slap! Anyways now that I've recognized the error of my ways and have been trying to backtrack I sorta have myself all confused Not sure if i'm really understanding the concept behind how the boxes are derived....or if what I think is going on is actually right. I'll try my best to explain.

Ok I know the formula is 32232 and regarless of what my root note is this will always be the formula for the minor Pentatonic scale but I'll use the G minor scale as my example.

G,Bb, C, D, F, G are the notes in this scale. So when going through the scale boxes, even though I don't always start or finish on G (root note) when moving through them, as long as I am using those notes, following the formula, I'm still in the G minor scale is that correct? (or whatever I choose as the root note for the scale I want to play)

And with regards to the boxes and working out the patterns,(again using G minor Pentatonic) is it fair for me to say that when you move to say the second scale box starting at Bb will the formula then become 22323? By this I mean the next note is still going to be C and then D so on and so forth so your still following the same formula just your starting point moved up one and that this will be true as you move throught the boxes and start on a different note from that scale? not sure if I explained that well or not.....hopefully you'll get what I'm trying to say

thanks

rok

The root note defines which key you're in. So where you've given an example of G minor pentatonic you're root note when starting the scale should be a G note. So for example if you were starting the scale on the E string you would start on the 3rd fret, because that's a G note. When you change keys it's a good idea to make sure that whatever you changing to that you hit that root note at first. There are 5 different boxes and all of them will have root notes. Find out where they are and concentrate on learning them so that you can start and land on the root notes. Andrew correct me if i am wrong here

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[rokchik]

The root note defines which key you're in. So where you've given an example of G minor pentatonic you're root note when starting the scale should be a G note. So for example if you were starting the scale on the E string you would start on the 3rd fret, because that's a G note. When you change keys it's a good idea to make sure that whatever you changing to that you hit that root note at first. There are 5 different boxes and all of them will have root notes. Find out where they are and concentrate on learning them so that you can start and land on the root notes. Andrew correct me if i am wrong here

Thanks for the reply steve25.

I think I understand the root note business in that if your doing the G minor pentatonic scale for example you start with G then work through the formula 32232 to get the rest of the scale.

My big problem is understanding the boxes/patterns and how they are derived. I know the shapes but I'm trying to understand them. Like the second box shape for the G minor pentatonic scale startes on Bb...unless I have that mistaken too So your still going to follow the scale of G minor in that your next note will be C then D and so on. So what I guess I'm trying to get at....and I know my explaining isn't very good... is that do you adjust the formula within the scale your playing ie: G minor pentatonic, to the note the next box shape starts with? Again I hope that makes sense.....this is why I have myself so confused

Or are you saying just learn where G is in the next box and work from there?....this seems easier. I think I'm turning a simple issue into a not so simple one

By the way Andrew sorry I probably should have just posted this as a question on the board instead of the lesson.

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This post has been edited by rokchik: Sep 6 2007, 01:13 AM

[steve25]

Thanks for the reply steve25.

I think I understand the root note business in that if your doing the G minor pentatonic scale for example you start with G then work through the formula 32232 to get the rest of the scale.

My big problem is understanding the boxes/patterns and how they are derived. I know the shapes but I'm trying to understand them. Like the second box shape for the G minor pentatonic scale startes on Bb...unless I have that mistaken too So your still going to follow the scale of G minor in that your next note will be C then D and so on. So what I guess I'm trying to get at....and I know my explaining isn't very good... is that do you adjust the formula within the scale your playing ie: G minor pentatonic, to the note the next box shape starts with? Again I hope that makes sense.....this is why I have myself so confused

Or are you saying just learn where G is in the next box and work from there?....this seems easier. I think I'm turning a simple issue into a not so simple one

They all start on G in the G minor pentaonic scale. So for example lets take 1 box:

E--------------------------------3--6--3--------------------------------
B--------------------------3--6----------6--3---------------------------
G--------------------3--5----------------------5--3---------------------
D--------------3--5----------------------------------5--3---------------
A--------3--5-----------------------------------------------5--3--------
E--3--6------------------------------------------------------------6--3-

Here we start on the E string 3rd fret, that's the G note. Another root note would be on the 5th fret D string, you could also start there as that would still be in the key of G. However another box we have:

E----------------------6--8--6----------------------------------
B---------------6--8------------8--6---------------------------
G--------5--7-------------------------7--5---------------------
D--5--8-------------------------------------8--5---------------
A---------------------------------------------------8--5--------
E----------------------------------------------------------8--6-


Here we start on the 5th fret D for the next box. This is because that is where the root is. There's also a root note on the 8th fret B string. Hope this helps

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