Mastering And Understanding Minor Pentatonic and Blues Scales

By Bailey Murphy

In this article we are going to provide you guidance about our basic scale, the Minor Pentatonic scale. Pentatonic is a great scale to learn, particularly for guitar. It is commonly the first scale. It is pretty simple, and it works very well over simple chord progressions, and is a great place to start practicing improvisation for soloing.

The basic information about the Minor Pentatonic Scale

Pentatonic scale has 5 notes (hence the Penta- in its name). This is the 1st scale. It is very absorbing because most scales you will learn in the future have 7 notes in them. It has only 2 notes on every string and this forms the pentatonic scale more simplified to play. The Pentatonic scale includes both major and minor - we will focus on the Minor Pentatonic musical scale in this lesson.

In the scales intro any scale can be described by a plain numeric pattern, and the pentatonic scale can also be described in the same fashion.

Its formula is: 3 2 2 3 2

Lets see how this works in an example, for example G Minor Pentatonic.

We start with G as our base note, and add up every step of the rule to find the next note:

G + 3 semitones is Bb Bb + 2 semitones is C C + 2 semitones is D D + 3 semitones is F F + 2 semitones is G

Thus there you get G minor pentatonic notes that are G, Bb, C, D, F, G. This formula can be implemented with any other root note for the exact scale entirely depending upon your choice.

Moreover, you can move these patterns up and down the neck. For instance, if you want a minor Pentatonic, then you work it out as follows:

The root note A is 2 semitones up from G, so simply move each of these formulas up 2 frets and voila, you will get rules for A minor pentatonic.

Also, the patterns repeat up the neck after the first five - hence if you want to climb up higher, start again with the 1st rule played with the G root note played on the 15th fret instead of the 3rd fret.

The Blues Scale

Another scale, very closely linked to the minor pentatonic scale is the blues scale which is used in blues. An attitional passing note to the pentatonic musical scale is normally added up by the blues players which is technically known as a flattened 5th - that means an additional note in between notes 3 and 4 of the pentatonic scale. When this note is added to the minor pentatonic scale you get the blues scale. The rule changes when you add that extra note to it and it becomes like this: 3 2 1 1 3 2, and our example G minor Pentatonic becomes G, Bb, C, Db, D, F, G when rewritten as the blues scale.

The Minor Pentatonic Scale in Action

Now we are going to talk about that how to play the Minor Pentatonic and the Blues scale. Both the Pentatonic and the Blues scales are suitable for playing Rock and 12 bar blues with. Lets focus on 12 bar blues - a very pretty simple concept that is considered as a source of some amazing music over the years.

The chords you apply are a type of I, IV, V progression - what that means isn't really critical at this point, but the chords you would use with a G minor or Pentatonic scale would be as follows:

G - G - G - G - C - C - G - G - D - C - G - D This chord sequence enables you to play sequences of notes from any of the pentatonic boxes and you will acquire a bluesy kind of improvisation going. - 18418

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