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The minor pentatonic scale is a fairly well known scale, and I imagine many of you
have used it before. However, I find that many musicians think about using this scale
with a limited perspective. Often times its thought of in a blues context, which of
course the minor pentatonic scale lends itself to quite nicely. But if you take a deeper
look, youll discover that the minor pentatonic scale has a lot more to offer!
Now before I dive in to the lesson, let me offer up my philosophy on scales in
general: Scales can offer us a way to conceptualize music and help us learn our
instrument better. But they are not musical in and of themselves. They can help us
group notes together in a functional way, and understand music theoretically, but it is
up to the musician to use that knowledge to create actual musical ideas. Okay, thats
my disclaimer, now lets move on!
In case you arent familiar with the minor pentatonic scale, here is an A minor
pentatonic notated, which we will be using as a reference point for this lesson:
Youll notice I added the 9th (C) as the top note before going back down the scale.
Youll also notice I notated two octaves of the scale, which I believe is important to be
able to do.
Okay, now lets start checking out some different ways to apply the minor penatonic
scale to different kinds of chords. For the most part, Ill try to stick to the A minor
pentatonic scale to help provide more clarity.
For example, An A minor chord (which corresponds with our A minor pentatonic scale),
is relative to C major. A trick to finding that out is to move up a minor third from the
root. Or if you are starting with a major chord, move up a major sixth and that is the
relative minor.
Now we are in the key of C major. What chords are all relative to C major? Here they
are:
I: Cmaj7
ii: Dmin7
iii: Emin7
IV: Fmaj7
V: G7
vi: Amin7 (relative minor)
vii: Bmin7(b5)
For pretty much all of these you can play an A minor pentatonic, although some I
would suggest otherwise. Lets go over them:
Pretty cool huh? Jazz guitarist Vic Juris has a pretty inventive way to help us start
applying this scale with some chordal movement. Take a look at it notated out:
Weve already gone over how the A minor pentatonic works over a Dmin7. Weve also
already covered the concept of playing a minor pentatonic scale a half step down
from a maj7(b5) chord. The new member to the group here is the A# pentatonic
over the G7alt chord. You can think of this as just playing a minor pentatonic
a minor third up from the root of a given dominant chord. Essentially you are
hitting all of the possible alterations in a dominant 7 chord (#9, b9, #11, #5). It may
sound a little bit out but when you resolve to the Cmaj7(b5) it has a really nice
sound.
Hopefully this stuff gets you hitting the practice room to start working on some of
these applications of the minor pentatonic scale. Good luck!