Guitar Scales: Minor Pentatonic

So far in this series on guitar scales, we’ve done the Major Scale and it’s little brother: the Major Pentatonic. This time, we’ll be looking at the Minor Pentatonic- the scale of ROCK!

Stripped Down Scale

As we discussed before, the pentatonic scales are basically just simplified versions of bigger scales, and the Minor Pentatonic is no different. It’s actually the smaller version of something called the “Natural Minor Scale” which is just the notes of the major scale with a different starting note (more on that later).

So, if we take our example of the C major scale:

C D E F G A B

…but, instead of starting from C, we start from A, we get this:

A B C D E F G

Which is called the “A Natural Minor Scale”. Kinda the same idea as the major scale, but this one starts in a different place, so the pattern of intervals (or fret distances between the notes) also starts in a different place (creating a different sounding scale). We’ll talk more about the Natural Minor scale in the next post. All you need to worry about now is that we’re going to take out some of the notes- leaving only the 5 best (or most interesting)- in just the same way we selected the 5 best notes from the major scale to create the major pentatonic.

Constructing the Minor Pentatonic

To create the Minor Pentatonic, we start with the Natural Minor scale:

A B C D E F G

Then take out the 2nd and the 6th notes, leaving us with only: the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th:

A C D E G

This is probably the most popular scale used in rock music, the Minor Pentatonic. Here it is in tab:


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


You may have noticed that this scale in A (A C D E G) is exactly the same notes as the major pentatonic in C (C D E G A). This means that the patterns for one, are the same as the other. For example, the tab above could be used over an A minor progression as A Minor Pentatonic, but you could also use the same scale shape over a C major progression and call it C major Pentatonic- because they both have exactly the same notes!

What’s Good about the Minor Pentatonic

• Very useful for rock or blues soloing!
• Easy to sound good using this scale
• Add a ♭5 (between the 4th and 5th notes) for the blues scale
• Bend the 3rd note (a minor third) up one fret (to a major third) for an awesome, bluesy sound!
• Bend the 7th note (a minor 7th) up two frets to the root note for a very rock sounding bend

So I hope that gives you an introduction to the Minor Pentatonic scale…oh and don’t forget to subscribe to stay updated!
Rob.

February 8, 2011 at 11:00 pm | Guitar Scales, How to | No comments