The Pentatonic Scale

Overview

The Pentatonic Scale is a commonly used scale in western music.  It is made up of five notes hence Penta, the tonic of course meaning tones.  The scale is often used in blues music and the use of it can be heard in several songs.

Throughout this page I would like to discuss the theory, positions and uses on the guitar of the pentatonic scale.

Theory

As I mentioned earlier the pentatonic scale is made up of five notes.  In order to fully understand the theory of the pentatonic scale it would be wise to first go over some fundamentals of basic music theory and the Major Scale.
To begin a major scale is made up of 8 notes in the C major scale these notes include
C – D – E – F –G –A –B –C.
If you have ever been in a chorus class you may remember these notes as
Do – Re – Mi – Fa – Sol – La – Ti – Do.
The next thing I would like to go over is the intervals related to these notes. A good way to look at intervals is to think of the distance between each note either on a fretboard or a keyboard.
P1   – Perfect First   – C
M2 – Major Second – D
M3 – Major Third    – E
P4  – Perfect Forth  – F
P5  –Perfect Fifth     – G
M6 – Major Sixth     – A (Relative Minor)
M7 – Major Seventh – B
P8- Perfect Eighth (Octave) -C

Now that we have constructed a C Major Scale we will now take a look at how to construct a C Major Pentatonic Scale.  As we have gone over a C Major Pentatonic Scale in constructed of five notes, these five notes include P1 – M2 –M3- P5 – M6 – P8 which in the key of C translates into C – D – E – G – A – C.

One interesting thing that you may not be aware of is that the C Major Pentatonic Scale is also the A minor pentatonic scale.  This is because A minor is the relative minor of the scale of C, to keep it simple A minor contains the same notes as C Major the root or is simple moved from C to A.

A minor scale
A – P1
B – M2
C-  m3 (minor 3rd)
D – P4
E – P5
F – m6 (minor 6th)
G – m7(minor 7th)
A -  P8

To construct a Aminor pentatonic scale use the following intervals P1 – M2 – m3 – P4 – P5- m6 – m7 – P8.  As you can see from the above chart the following notes are in a A minor pentatonic scale: A – C – D -E – F – G – A.

What is nice about this and its applications on the guitar is that after you have learned all the boxes of the C Major Pentatonic scale you have also learned the A minor pentatonic scale and because you have a understanding of the theory behind it you can simple move the boxes around to adapt to any scale.

Through my years of learning music theory and how to play the guitar I have came across many resources but I can truly say that “Pentatonic Power” everything you need to know to start playing solid lead guitar.

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