However the approach as to how we go about learning and applying the concepts is different for each instrument. Mastering pentatonic scale theory guitar masterclass. Its actually great that we are using a piano keyboard as an example. You can see how to put together a minor pentatonic and g major scale patterns here. Minor pentatonic scales c pitch for piano, guitar, flute, violin, vibraphone, oboe and any other concert pitch instrument. The trick is to find interesting and effective exercises to make your fingers remember those. For example, in an a minor blues scale, the added note would be d sharp. Pentatonic scale simple english wikipedia, the free. A pentatonic scale starting on c will use the notes c,d,e,g,a the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th notes of a major scale an easy way to find such a pentatonic scale is by using all the black notes of a keyboard. May 09, 2016 pentatonic scales are very important scales to know if you want to become a better improviser at the piano. How to construct major and minor pentatonic scales. Includes an indepth 12 page explanation that leads to complete understanding of the fundamentals of major and minor scales, chords. What is the most common fingering for the pentatonic scale.
You can see how to put together a minor pentatonic. F, ab, bb, c, eb, f heres a free piano chart of all twelve minor scales of in the pentatonic form. These notes create a pentatonic 5note scale that is easy to see, and can be accompanied effectively by just one or two chords. The pentatonic scale uses just the most universal note choices. Using the pentatonic scale is a good way for children to make up their own tunes. Volume 1 of this educational jazz piano book contains 15 jazz piano exercises, tricks, and other interesting jazz piano techniques, voicings, grooves, and ideas scot ranney enjoys playing. Pentatonic scales have found their home in the hearts of jazz, blues, and rock musicians everywhere. However, most people agree that the blues scale is a variation on the major and minor pentatonic scales, and those pentatonic scales are derived from the major scale and the natural minor. Examples of heptatonic scales are the major scale and the minor scale.
If youre not familiar with the major scale, check out the major scale lesson. A pentatonic scale is a pattern of 5 notes plus the repeated upper. Im not embarrassed to admit that i didnt totally understand what the five notes of the pentatonic scale are. The awesome part is that they contain the same note intervals with differing roots, so the patterns are the same. Music theory is the same for both piano and guitar. D minor pentatonic has the same notes as f major pentatonic and so it goes.
F, g, a, c, d, f click here for a free piano chord chart of all the twelve major pentatonic scales. The pentatonic scale, major and minor free piano lessons. When you play the minor pentatonic scale, you may notice that it sounds a bit bluesy. Pentatonic scales are really useful if youre improvising on the piano, because theyre very reliable if you have a regular chord progression then if you use the right pentatonic. In the minor pentatonic its notes 1,3,4,5 and 7missing 2 and 6. Oct 07, 2019 however, most people agree that the blues scale is a variation on the major and minor pentatonic scales, and those pentatonic scales are derived from the major scale and the natural minor scale. How to construct major and minor pentatonic scales music. This type of scale has five notes per octave unlike a heptatonic scale which. Cs relative minor pentatonic scale, a minor pentatonic, begins on the 6 th scale. The notes of the pentatonic, song with a pentatonic scale.
As i mentioned above, the pentatonic scale is often used to avoid avoid notes. This book is intended to serve as a poin t of departure for the study of pentatonic scales. Eb pitch and bass clef versions of each book, making them useful. If youre not familiar with the major scale, check out the. This type of scale has five notes per octave unlike a heptatonic scale which has seven notes. The pentatonic scale is also more ambiguous, but this is a good thing, because it means that its harder to play bad notes notes that, although theyre within the key, may not fit well against any given chord in the progression. The 5 scale shapes are required for grade 5, and for some syllabuses they are required for grade 4. Rock blues licks scales and applications in pdf ebook format shipped to you on a plain nonlabeled cd for you to label any way you wish. One of the most pervasive scales in pop and rock music is the pentatonic scale. Pentatonic and blues scales covers the essential guitar theory for the minor pentatonic scale, major pentatonic scale and the.
It is thought that the pentatonic scale represents an early stage of musical development. In this lesson im going to introduce you to the concept of pentatonic harmony. Knowing the notes of the pentatonic scale is one thing but turning that knowledge into practical playing skill is another. This book provides the pentatonic scale fingerings, diagrams, lessons and licks that every guitarist needs to know. And it is not hard to discover the reason why everybody uses and abuses of this scale. It looks like a method book and can be used as one, but it is better to think of it as a collection of potentia lly useful intervallic sequences 1 that are designed to be modified to suit the players your purposes. A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic. Unlike major and minor scales, the pentatonic has no semitones. A pentatonic scale, as the name implies, has only five notes.
About the book this minor pentatonic scales ebook is a compilation of 9 years of preparation. It is easy to create and to use some decades before, some musicians use to earn millions just playing this s. Print and learn to play piano scales in major and minor as well as in other interesting modes, in the lessons below. The pentatonic scale is also more ambiguous, but this is a good thing, because it means that its harder to play bad notes notes that, although theyre within the key, may not fit well against any given chord. Pentatonic scales are very important scales to know if you want to become a better improviser at the piano. Pentatonic and blues scales covers the essential guitar theory for the minor pentatonic scale, major pentatonic scale and the blues scale and highlights the characteristics of each scale with useful licks and exercises. By the end of this lesson youll see for yourself what makes this scale so special. Learn how to play the minor pentatonic scale effortlessly anywhere on the fretboard kindle edition by nichols, lee.
In addition to the traditional pentatonic scale, this book introduces eight other pentatonic scales. How to play the pentatonic scale on guitar dummies. What is the best piano scale book from beginner to. How pentatonic scales work piano questions answered. Note that a minor pentatonic has identical notes with c major pentatonic but in different order. Volume 1 of this educational jazz piano book contains 15 jazz piano exercises, tricks, and other interesting jazz piano techniques, voicings, grooves. The formula of the minor pentatonic, a list of all 12 minor. The pentatonic scale is a great scale for improvising and soloing. A blues scale is a pentatonic scale with one more note added in the scale. The minor pentatonic scale is a mode of the major pentatonic scale.
However the approach as to how we go about learning and applying the concepts is different for. Guitar pentatonic and blues scales fundamental changes. The orff system places a heavy emphasis on developing creativity through improvisation in children, largely through use of the pentatonic scale. As you can probably assume, the blues scale is used in a lot of blues songs, but it can also be. This means that it uses the same note as the major pentatonic scale, but the tonic note for the. Mastering pentatonic scale theory welcome to the learning pentatonic scales page at gmc run by yours truly, the professor. The pentatonic scale is used both for soloing, and for basing song riffs around. This note is known as a blue note, and it is the flattened 5th in the case of the minor pentatonic scale, and the flattened 3rd in the case of the major pentatonic scale. Premium learning minor pentatonic scales pdf ebook. The below table summarises all 5 modes of the major pentatonic scale, each using c as the root. Illustration courtesy of desi serna you can think of dorian mode as being the. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc.
What is the best piano scale book from beginner to advanced. It is thought that the pentatonic scale represents an early stage of musical development, because it is found, in different forms, in most of the worlds music. Complete piano theory course chords, intervals, scales. Theory, we learn about pentascales in prep 1 rudiments workbook on. Pentatonic scale, also called fivenote scale or fivetone scale, musical scale containing five different tones. Learn pentatonic scale patterns on piano piano lessons. The lessons on this page are geared towards helping you build a strong understanding of each of the various pentatonic scales, how they are built, how they are related and how they relate to chords and arpeggios when. How to use pentatonic scales for jazz improvisation. If you are not sure how to build your pentatonic scales or what a relative minor is, you can learn all of that in some of my free play sax by ear crash.
Theyre used all the time in jazz, rock, country, blues, gospel, pop, etc etc. And, just like any other preexisting scale, you can create modes out of the major pentatonic scale by selecting a different root note. Scale, chord, arpeggio and cadence studies in all major and minor keys presented in a convenient twopage format. Pentatonic scales are great place to start for song writing and improvising. Its build from either the major or natural minor scale. There are both pentatonic major and minor the minor is slightly more often used. This creates a distinctly different sound for the new scale. The pentatonic scale plays a significant role in music education, particularly in orffbased, kodalybased, and waldorf methodologies at the primary or elementary level. Pentatonic scale mode, to be more accurate is a selection of 5 notes out of 12 unlike the 7note selection in diatonic scales. I have been playing the piano for over twenty years. Were all familiar with the notes in a c major pentatonic scale. On the guitar, because dorian mode centers on a minor chord, most lead guitar players prefer to approach it with minor pentatonic scale patterns. This is because the way that the notes are laid out on a guitar fretboard differ from that of a piano keyboard.
Browse alfred music from alfred music at sheet music plus. Pentatonic and blues scales fundamental changes music book. Unlike a lot of other available material on this subject it isnt just about the theory. How to play dorian mode with the pentatonic scale on the.
Pentatonic scale patterns on piano if you want to be able to improvise and use pentatonic scale patterns on the piano to create interesting and exciting solos then read on. Pentatonic scale in debussys voiles, preludes, book i, no. Rock music, and more generally, popular music, owes a great debt to the blues tradition. The pentatonic scale is one of the most commonly used scales used in music. Full fingerings for each of these nine scales are given in all twelve keys for both right and left hand, which is to say, the book gives us two hundred and sixteen sets of fingerings in all assuming ive done the arithmetic right. It can be found in just about all ancient and contemporary cultures, including celtic folk music, hungarian folk music, african. We can connect all these scales with a little bit of music theory. How to learn to improvise using minor pentatonic scales is written for any musicians on any instrument interested in learning how to learn to improvise. This lesson is closely related to the pentatonic improvisation lesson so if you havent watched that tutorial id recommend you check that out first. Pdf e book lead guitar licks lesson pentatonic scales rock. Its better to think of the pentatonic scale as a cut down scale. This is a resource with free piano lessons and printable scale charts for beginners.
Contains guitar theory, pentatonic licks, exercises and sequences. Jun 10, 2016 the minor pentatonic scale is a fairly wellknown scale, and i imagine many of you have used it before. Overview of major and minor pentatonic piano scales. The five notes of the pentatonic scale are scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 in major keys and 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 in minor keys. Unlike the major scale, which is a seven note scale, the major pentatonic consists of five notes penta five, tonic notes. There is a major pentatonic scale and a minor pentatonic scale. More than a pattern book, this 80page spiralbound book lays out the theory behind the use of pentatonic scales in jazz, and follows. As far as the intervals for pentatonic scales go, you can form one in any key by using the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th note of that major scale.
D minor pentatonic has the same notes as f major pentatonic and so. The five notes of the pentatonic scale are scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 in major keys and 1, 3, 4, 5. This is because this scale is really the blues scale with one note missing. However, i find that many musicians think about using this scale with a limited perspective. A detailed look at the theory behind pentatonic scales and the myriad ways they.
Mar 17, 2018 by the end of this lesson youll see for yourself what makes this scale so special. If it is for technique, you dont need a book, you need a knowledgeable teacher to show you how to move properly. A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave such as the major scale and minor scale pentatonic scales were. It doesnt claim to be an introduction to jazz piano or jazz improvization theory. I am the author of 14 piano lessons and music theory books, including several amazon. There are a few reasons that the penatonic scales are the short cut for the scales. Starting the c major pentatonic scale on the 6th note of the. Often times its thought of in a blues context, which of course the minor pentatonic scale lends itself to quite nicely. Bruce benward and marilyn nadine saker, music in theory and practice, eighth. We will begin by improvising melodies using only the black notes of the piano.