Chapter 2 The Pentatonic Scale About This Chapter “The pentatonic scale is a very popular scale used to ate riffs, solos, and basslines. It’s frequently used {fn conjunction with common chords to create more " complaxand melodic rhythm parts.Itcan even be used «to compose parts for otherinstruments including voices. "For those of you who feel you already understand the © pentatonic scale well enough to skip this section, dont! ‘Odds are you'll learn something new and valuable. “Topics Covered [Scale template 2. Matching shapes & connecting patterns 3.Playing across the whole fretboard 4.Fingering i 5.Major and minor tonalities. 6 Playingin all keys © 1Praeticing ; 8,References to familiar songs _ About the Scale i “Penta” means five. “Tonic” means tones or notes. The | fenton sale is a five-tone scale For ample ‘The | Eminor pentatonic scale uses the notes E-G-A-B-D. |) Scale tones can be played in any octave and in any | position. As a result, the five notes occur scattered all " Atound the fretboard. Below you can see where the _ Evminor pentatonic scale notes are located on the fretboard. The Pentatonic Scale Template ‘The concept of matching shapes and connecting pattems is how players of fretted instruments navigate around the fretboard. In order to learn and use this scale effectively, i's necessary to chop up the notes into easy-to-play pattems. As you can seein the next group of diagrams, there ae five different pieces that connect to complete the whole puzzle. “These pattems should be completely memorized. Start with pattem one and play up and down it repeatedly until doing so becomes a routine and you donit have to think about what you're doing. When you've memorized pattern one completely, continue with the others. 2 rT z{ ts tes ait Major and Minor Pentatonic Nearly all guitarists understand the pentatonic sc as a minor scale. Very few realize that it can be maj. also. To truly comprehend the difference and benefit of knowing both you'll have w Teas song examples (which will be mentioned shortly). In the meantime let’s explore a visual example. Notice in the next two diagrams how both an E minor chord and a G major chord can be built from this pentatonic scale (shaded circles represent chord shape). No other basic chords can be made. This scale can function in two different ways and as a result has two possible names: 1.) The E minor pentatonic scale or 2.) The G major pentatonic scale. Cy —O-> ‘open E minor chord / E minor pentatonic scale ~9 Learn and memorize the five patterns of the pentatonic hen” scale template now (whether it takes 15 minutes or late week). Focus on one pattern at a time. Eventually, connect the patterns until you run out of fretboard, then trace your way back to where you started. Come back and read on when you're done. ————————————— PL ws depo cance wndatandg ef mac Oa od ‘aay wl bei sttig tear sls Howe a gute Pes EM fer wth pene ond ere onfrae peje ‘aon ox shop pater cea: Fam «poe peepee eres ‘Rar ses o concent ont pen sce rts ea ote fsa er ato @ ‘open G major chord / G major pentatonic scale ‘You can use this pentatonic scale to play over songs with an E minor tonality and also songs with a G major tonality. You can always use pattern one to determine the two possible keys of any given pentatonic scale. The first note in pattern one will always be your minor root. “The second note in pattern one will always be your major root. Did you ever think of using this scale to play over a song with a G major tonality? Did you know that a large portion of popular music utilizes the pentatonic sc" this way? You'll learn more on this later.