Why learn the pentatonic scale?

[sloar]

I've been playing for a couple years now and I'm pretty decent at copying songs but I don't know what I'm playing or why. I want to start to actually learn how to play and get serious with my playing. So far I've been self taught and now I'm stuck. Ive taken myself as for as I can go on my own. I plan on starting lessons soon, but for now I've started learning scales. Whats the reason for learning the pentatonic scales and how is it going to help my playing? Also I'm open to any other tips or advise to help my progress. Thanks

[JonPR]

There are two kinds of pentatonic scale in common use: Major pentatonic and minor pentatonic.

Major pentatonic = 1 2 3 5 6 of a major scale, eg, C D E G A from C major.

Minor pentatonic = 1 3 4 5 7 of a minor scale, e.g., C Eb F G Bb from C minor.

The minor pentatonic is the only scale commonly learned by beginner rock guitarists - often before they learn anything else! - because it's the basis of blues, meaning they can solo to their heart's content and sound good without understanding anything they're doing. (When they want to understand, or to sound more musically interesting, then they find they have to go back to the kinds of things you already know. Not just complete 7-note scales, but actually playing songs... )

I'm not knocking the scale itself! A lot of classic rock riffs are minor pentatonic. The melody of Gershwin's Summertime is all minor pentatonic apart from one note (last note of second line).

The major pentatonic is a good way into improvising over major chord sequences, by playing the major pentatonic of each chord. In fact the minor pentatonic of each minor chord works in the same way. (The beginner blues method is the minor pent of the key over everything... E.g., A minor pentatonic in key of A (major), regardless of the chords. It works, up to a point, because that's how blues sounds, roughly.)

As an example, here are the pentatonic scales for each chord in the key of C major.

C (C E G) - pentatonic = C D E G A
Dm (D F A) - pentatonic = D F G A C
Em (E G B) - pentatonic = E G A B D
F (F A C) - pentatonic = F G A C D
G (G B D) - pentatonic = G A B D E
Am (A C E) - pentatonic = A C D E G

Each pentatonic adds two good-sounding notes to the chord arpeggio. And all of them are subsets of the key scale, so sound good for that reason too. Plus, you'll notice there are actually only three different sets of notes. C=Am, Dm=F, Em=G.

This is a really good way of getting into improvisation, as long as you know your chord shapes well enough. It's easy enough to see where to add the two notes in question to any chord shape. Any improvisation using this tactic will sound "in key" and will also sound like you're following the chords (which the blues minor pent method doesn't).

The next stage is to stretch beyond the pentatonics into the full scale, when you notice that the additional two notes added to each pentatonic create certain expressive tensions against the chord. I.e., they are less consonant with the chord, but you can still use them creatively. Meanwhile, your work in the first stage (chords and their pentatonics) keeps you aware of the governing role of the chords - stops you just noodling at random on the whole key scale.

A couple more aspects of major pentatonic:

1. Melodically it has strong associations with Scottish traditional music (Auld Lang Syne, Skye Boat Song), and American spirituals and gospel music (Amazing Grace, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, A Change Is Gonna Come). The latter sound was often exploited by Jimi Hendrix in his ballads (Wind Cries Mary, Little Wing).

2. In more advanced kinds of blues - and rock'n'roll and country - parallel minor and major pentatonic are often combined. That means, in the key of A, both A minor and A major pentatonic. All together: A B C C# D E F# G. You wouldn't use it randomly like an 8-note scale, you'd still favour some notes over others according to the chord. But you can still treat it as the raw material, especially in rock'n'roll and the bluesier kinds of country music. The intro to Johnny B Goode uses this combination scale.

[rllink]

Jon explained it all very well and his post was quite informative. I was in much the same circumstances, self taught and just flailing away with no direction, not quite getting where I wanted to be. I started lessons a few months ago and right off the bat my instructor had me doing minor pentatonic scales. It didn't take long for it to make sense of everything I was trying to do before and not quite getting there. The more I learn the scales the quicker I pick things up. It all just makes more sense. I'm a believer. I am not saying one can't pick it up without learning scales, if you watch something long enough and do enough trial and error, you can figure it out, but knowing and mastering the scales takes a lot of trial and error out of it.

[KevWind]

JonPR said it very well
And he references it, but I'll say it agin.... The Pent scales are very useful to get started BUT don't get stuck with just them.
Think of them aa a foundation element, and something that if learned and done correctly will make the building the rest of your musical house easier .

[Mr. Jelly]

To answer your question I'd say because it's a place to go, to forward your knowledge of playing guitar. There are others. Everything a person learns about playing guitar, music theory and making music is a step on a journey. Minor Pentatonic scales are easy and fun so they help make learning guitar something to look forward to. Pick a key and play the 1 chord and play a couple notes of the scale. Then play the 4 chord and a couple more notes from the scale. Play the 1 chord again with some notes from the scale. Then wrap it up by playing the 5 chord along with some note of the scale.

This is how I first learned to play something on guitar. I did it by ear because there were no learning tools back in the day. It turned out to be the minor pentatonic scale. Years later somebody made some boxes as a learning tool. I never have used those patterns but I use the notes at times.

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by KevWind

JonPR said it very well
And he references it, but I'll say it agin.... The Pent scales are very useful to get started BUT don't get stuck with just them.
Think of them aa a foundation element, and something that if learned and done correctly will make the building the rest of your musical house easier .

Depends on what you want to do. Eric Clapton and BB King and Peter Green basically played within the minor and major pentatonic scales about 99% of the time and I don't think they're bad folks to emulate at all... I've been playing on and off for 40 years and they're the basis for everything I improvise. Sometimes I step outside of them a little bit, just through experience, not actual knowledge or comprehension. On a good day, they're never limiting - I can stay within those scales and never run out of ideas. And on a bad day, knowing every scale in the universe wouldn't help. You can make a lot of music with those two scales.

For sure, if you want to play like Jerry Garcia or Eddie Van Halen or Joe Pass, you need to know a lot more, but I can cop a decent Garcia FEEL staying in the pentatonic universe, and since that's as close to his playing as I was ever gonna get anyway, it seems adequate to me.

-Ray

[rick-slo]

Practice scales somewhat be able to play them technically. Good practice for precision and speed. Don't
know that the pentatonic scale is anything special in general fingerstyle playing unless perhaps you adlib
a fair amount in music that uses that scale.

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Practice scales somewhat be able to play them technically. Good practice for precision and speed. Don't
know that the pentatonic scale is anything special in general fingerstyle playing unless perhaps you adlib
a fair amount in music that uses that scale.

As a fingerstyle player, this is pretty close to the advice my teacher (Mark Hanson) has given me. At this stage in my fingerstyle journey, I get more out of learning new songs rather than playing scales. I have my hands full just trying to be technically proficient and trying to sound musical with each new arrangement we take on.

Not to hijack the main topic, but I am finding I do my primary woodshed work playing arpeggio exercises. I’ve been enjoying Nicola Mandorino’s 120 Arpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by SprintBob

As a fingerstyle player, this is pretty close to the advice my teacher (Mark Hanson) has given me. At this stage in my fingerstyle journey, I get more out of learning new songs rather than playing scales. I have my hands full just trying to be technically proficient and trying to sound musical with each new arrangement we take on.

Not to hijack the main topic, but I am finding I do my primary woodshed work playing arpeggio exercises. I’ve been enjoying Nicola Mandorino’s 120 Arpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar.

Right. Arpeggios and leaning tunes a good way to spend time on.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by raysachs

Depends on what you want to do. Eric Clapton and BB King and Peter Green basically played within the minor and major pentatonic scales about 99% of the time and I don't think they're bad folks to emulate at all... I've been playing on and off for 40 years and they're the basis for everything I improvise. Sometimes I step outside of them a little bit, just through experience, not actual knowledge or comprehension. On a good day, they're never limiting - I can stay within those scales and never run out of ideas. And on a bad day, knowing every scale in the universe wouldn't help. You can make a lot of music with those two scales.

For sure, if you want to play like Jerry Garcia or Eddie Van Halen or Joe Pass, you need to know a lot more, but I can cop a decent Garcia FEEL staying in the pentatonic universe, and since that's as close to his playing as I was ever gonna get anyway, it seems adequate to me.

-Ray

Ray I have no clue why you think I said or was suggesting they are bad, or don't use them etc. . Or that you have know every scale in the universe ??? I simply said don't get stuck with (just them)
I use them most of time for my leads also .
And while Eric and BB may have relied on them heavily, I'm betting they also relied on the pentatonic minor blues scale ( a variation of the the major and minor pent) as well as probably including notes from other scales also , which goes exactly to my point. And to quote you "Sometimes I step outside of them a little bit" which also goes exactly to my point

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Ray I have no clue why you think I said or was suggesting they are bad, or don't use them etc. . Or that you have know every scale in the universe ??? I simply said don't get stuck with (just them)
I use them most of time for my leads also .
And while Eric and BB may have relied on them heavily, I'm betting they also relied on the pentatonic minor blues scale ( a variation of the the major and minor pent) as well as probably including notes from other scales also , which goes exactly to my point. And to quote you "Sometimes I step outside of them a little bit" which also goes exactly to my point

I didn't mean to suggest you were disparaging them. But I guess I don't even go as far as when you said they're "very useful to get started BUT don't get stuck with just them". I think I was stuck with just them for a long time, including all of my younger years when I was jamming a lot and gigging a little. In those days, I didn't even have all that good a feel for the major pentatonic, so I was mostly playing the minor pentatonic. At this point in my life, I'm basically a home player and I'm actually more versatile now than I was then and I've fully incorporated the major pentatonic, often playing them off against each other when the chords allow, and added some of the places where I step outside of them a bit. But back when I was playing with and for people a lot, I rarely ventured beyond the minor pentatonic and, on a good night, it was still more than enough to get across.

While I'm less stuck in them now than I was then, I guess I'm defending "getting stuck in them" a bit as some folks I played with back in the day were more musical than I'll ever be pretty much never got past the minor pentatonic and did great stuff with it. So I'm in agreement with you about 90%, maybe more... But I don't think getting stuck in the pentatonic is necessarily a bad thing for a lot of folks.

-Ray

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by sloar

…Whats the reason for learning the pentatonic scales and how is it going to help my playing?

Hi solar…

The major pentatonic scale uses pitches 1-2-3-5-6 and there are no half-steps (intervals 4&7). The minor pentatonic scale in key of C is Am, and uses the exact same notes. The simplest form of an 'a' minor scale uses the exact same notes as a C scale, just in a different order.

A strong advantage is if you match the key with the pentatonic scale, there are no 'wrong' (dissonant) notes. It's a quick and easy way to get new students playing simple experimental lead parts. When people are beginning to explore lead playing, they are worried about what notes to play. Teach them the pentatonic and turn em loose!

Schools which use the Orff & Kodaly method of elementary music education (used in tens of thousands of grade schools in the USA…I have an elementary teaching degree in it) remove the 4 and 7 bars from all the xylophones. One of the practices of Orff & Kodaly is everybody learns to play and sing while they play. All the instruments use wooden bars and soft mallets, so the tone is pleasant, and by removing the ½ steps, it remains very consonant.

By removing the 4 & 7 up front, even if students lack accuracy while beginning, the music still sounds pleasant, and undue attention is not drawn to errant notes. It's about making music together, and while accuracy if important, it's not driven by a compulsion to do so. We never stopped a song if someone hit a 'bad' note. Those were addressed outside group situations.

This is just one plus for pentatonic playing.

There are entire cultures around the world who only play/write/sing/hear music in pentatonic form, and once entrenched in it, they cannot distinguish half steps. They hear them as sour notes.

Just for the record, I had 6th year students who had been playing/singing for 7 years (Kindergarten through grade 6) who were better players, and writers than many of my college music major colleagues. And they were also great improvisers, and rather fearless. The music became their 'language' and they loved to play and sing! I'm trying to remember, but somewhere between grade 3-4-5 they were given back the 4th & 7th interval bars, which they just rolled into the mix seamlessly.

By the way, we never told them they were playing Pentatonic scales/music. We just taught them to produce music!

[pieterh]

Originally Posted by JonPR

There are two kinds of pentatonic scale in common use: Major pentatonic and minor pentatonic.

Major pentatonic = 1 2 3 5 6 of a major scale, eg, C D E G A from C major.

Minor pentatonic = 1 3 4 5 7 of a minor scale, e.g., C Eb F G Bb from C minor.

The minor pentatonic is the only scale commonly learned by beginner rock guitarists - often before they learn anything else! - because it's the basis of blues, meaning they can solo to their heart's content and sound good without understanding anything they're doing. (When they want to understand, or to sound more musically interesting, then they find they have to go back to the kinds of things you already know. Not just complete 7-note scales, but actually playing songs... )

I'm not knocking the scale itself! A lot of classic rock riffs are minor pentatonic. The melody of Gershwin's Summertime is all minor pentatonic apart from one note (last note of second line).

The major pentatonic is a good way into improvising over major chord sequences, by playing the major pentatonic of each chord. In fact the minor pentatonic of each minor chord works in the same way. (The beginner blues method is the minor pent of the key over everything... E.g., A minor pentatonic in key of A (major), regardless of the chords. It works, up to a point, because that's how blues sounds, roughly.)

As an example, here are the pentatonic scales for each chord in the key of C major.

C (C E G) - pentatonic = C D E G A
Dm (D F A) - pentatonic = D F G A C
Em (E G B) - pentatonic = E G A B D
F (F A C) - pentatonic = F G A C D
G (G B D) - pentatonic = G A B D E
Am (A C E) - pentatonic = A C D E G

Each pentatonic adds two good-sounding notes to the chord arpeggio. And all of them are subsets of the key scale, so sound good for that reason too. Plus, you'll notice there are actually only three different sets of notes. C=Am, Dm=F, Em=G.

This is a really good way of getting into improvisation, as long as you know your chord shapes well enough. It's easy enough to see where to add the two notes in question to any chord shape. Any improvisation using this tactic will sound "in key" and will also sound like you're following the chords (which the blues minor pent method doesn't).

The next stage is to stretch beyond the pentatonics into the full scale, when you notice that the additional two notes added to each pentatonic create certain expressive tensions against the chord. I.e., they are less consonant with the chord, but you can still use them creatively. Meanwhile, your work in the first stage (chords and their pentatonics) keeps you aware of the governing role of the chords - stops you just noodling at random on the whole key scale.

A couple more aspects of major pentatonic:

1. Melodically it has strong associations with Scottish traditional music (Auld Lang Syne, Skye Boat Song), and American spirituals and gospel music (Amazing Grace, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, A Change Is Gonna Come). The latter sound was often exploited by Jimi Hendrix in his ballads (Wind Cries Mary, Little Wing).

2. In more advanced kinds of blues - and rock'n'roll and country - parallel minor and major pentatonic are often combined. That means, in the key of A, both A minor and A major pentatonic. All together: A B C C# D E F# G. You wouldn't use it randomly like an 8-note scale, you'd still favour some notes over others according to the chord. But you can still treat it as the raw material, especially in rock'n'roll and the bluesier kinds of country music. The intro to Johnny B Goode uses this combination scale.

Great post Jon!

[Mr. Jelly]

My evolution went something like minor pentatonic scale to major pentatonic scale add some major scale and then mix them all together to accomplish what is desired. I don't think in these terms any longer. It's more like do I want it to be be sweet sounding or sad or dissident sounding. I am now learning to work off of chords with more knowledge then I used to. Everybody's guitar learning journey starts from a different place. So everyone's route is different.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

My evolution went something like minor pentatonic scale to major pentatonic scale add some major scale and then mix them all together to accomplish what is desired. I don't think in these terms any longer. It's more like do I want it to be be sweet sounding or sad or dissident sounding. I am now learning to work off of chords with more knowledge then I used to. Everybody's guitar learning journey starts from a different place. So everyone's route is different.

Hi Mr J

I learned pentatonic on keyboard and from the major scale. My gigging partner learned it on guitar (playing blues) and in the minor version. We really approach songs differently which use pentatonic, and it still sounds good.