Pentatonics in two modes for blues and country. Key of A

The A pentatonic in two mdes major and minor

Pentatonic’s and playing blues and country

Almost all of your favorite rock, blues and country guitarist’s use pentatonic scales to solo with. The act of playing a solo is not what this article is going to

be on. It instead is about the use of the Pentatonic

in its tonal sense.

I want to talk about Parallel modes. Think of the pentatonic, as an overlay like on a map. You can take an image of say a curve on a clear piece of plastic and overlay it on a map. You will find several points where it matches but not everywhere.

The pentatonic is overlaid against the intervals of a scale and you will have 5 tones to use. This is a hard to convey in words. Some graphics and videos are here for you to use.

For the sake of what will be easy and really common we will use “the worlds most favorite pentatonic” To make this ever easier lets stay in the key of A.The 5^th fret pentatonic is the parallel minor dominant. You could match the intervals to the letter names two ways.

First the Minor mode

A is root or tonic in both

C is the minor 3^rd. or flat 3 in its simple name

D is the perfect 4^th or 4 in its simple name

E is the perfect 5^th or 5 in its simple name

G is the minor 7^th or flat 7 in its simple name

 

Now if you move the exact same fingering

down a minor 3^rd or a step and a half

you get an A major scale in 5 notes.

Watch the fret numbers!

A is root or tonic in both

B is the major 2nd. or 2 in its simple name

C# is the major 3d or 3 in its simple name

E is the perfect 5^th or 5 in its simple name

F# is the major 6th or 6 in its simple name

 

This is the same scale fingering for both scale formulas

All five of the pentatonic shapes will do the same thing.

They will do this in any key!

For more on these and other scales you can log in as a student and download the  "Interlock book 2"