Mixing Major and Minor Pentatonics: Part I Now that we have taken a look at the minor pentatonic scale, I am going to introduce the major pentatonic scale. The way I am going to do this is to use the minor pentatonic scale box position as a building block. Lets review the minor pentatonic scale box 1 position. Here it is: One again this is a 2 octave scale starting on the 6th string root. For more detail on this scale see my earlier article titled, The Minor Pentatonic Scale: What’s In The Box? Keep in mind that the root note on this scale position is based on the sixth or low E string. This is movable across the guitar neck, and whichever fret we start on is our root note. In this case we will use the 5th fret on the low E string which is A. Now that we have our minor scale position let’s go ahead and ad the major position. This will encompass adding on to the box a total of 3 extra frets. This will be 3 frets lower to the F# on the 2nd fret on the low E string. Here is a picture of the new box position containing both the major, and minor scale: Notice that our minor pentatonic box is still intact at the 5th fret spanning the 8th fret. Also notice our new major pentatonic scale that spans to the 2nd fret. Here are some key points concerning our new major scale pattern. -The first, and most pleasant is that the pattern is exactly the same as our minor scale pattern. -It shares notes with the minor scale at the 5th fret. The two most important of these notes are the root notes on the 5th fret on the high, and low e strings. -Notice we now have another root note to work with. This is on the 3rd string at the second fret. Memorize where this root note is. All root notes are your friend! -The most important thing to note about this pattern is the order in which it is played. The minor position starts with the root note at the first note of the box. The major position starts on the second note of the box. The first note of the box for the major position is the 5th note of the major pentatonic scale. This is important to note because to play the scale in order you need to start with the root note on the 2nd note of the pattern at the 5th fret. So both scales start on the same note on the same fret. For instance if you want to resolve your licks or phrases with a root note, they are in different spots for the major position, even though the patterns are identical. Now go ahead and practice playing both the minor, and major pentatonic box positions in order spanning the 2 octaves. Do it until you have memorized where the root notes fall in both positions. Also notice the difference in how they sound. The major will sound bright, and happy while the minor will be dark, and menacing. Mixing major, and minor scales during your solo’s is an art within itself. The one thing which needs to be pointed out is the key you are playing in. In this example we use the key of A. In a major key you can mix major, and minor fairly easy. In a minor key you will have a hard time mixing in major notes. Also what type of chord voicing’s you are using will have a major impact. Start to get a feel for chord tones. For example power chords vs. open position chords. Power chords leave out the note which denotes major or minor, and that makes them atonal. This makes it easy to mix major or minor over power chords. Be sure to check out the video that goes along with lesson. I will take you through some licks over a 12 bar blues progression using the patterns we learned above. You can click on the backing track link under this section to practice doing this yourself. |
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