Quadrium - Pentatonic Scales SI Lesson

Revision as of 02:34, 7 January 2011

Introduction

Hello all! My name is Dogukan. I'm 20 years old and have been playing guitar for 5 years.

This is the first SI lesson of mine. In this lesson i will show you the pentatonic scales. So let's get started.

Pentatonic Scale

The word "pentatonic" comes from the Greek word pente meaning five and tonic meaning tone.

Simply put, the pentatonic scale consists of five notes within one octave, that's why it is also sometimes referred to as a five-tone scale or five-note scale. A pentatonic scale has no semitones (ex: C-D-F-G-A)

The two basic forms of pentatonic scales are:

Major Pentatonic: Consists of the 1st - 2nd - 3rd - 5th - 6th notes of a major scale.

Minor Pentatonic: Consists of the same 5 notes of a major pentatonic scale but its tonic (first note of the scale} is 3 semitones below the tonic of the major pentatonic scale. For example, the C major pentatonic (C - D - E - G - A} has the same notes as the A minor pentatonic (A - C - D - E - G} but arranged differently.

The first note or tonic of the A minor pentatonic scale (=A) is 3 semitones (half steps) lower than the first note of the C major pentatonic scale (=C). It uses the 1st - minor 3rd - 4th - 5th - minor 7th notes of a scale.

Pentatonic scale patterns

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