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The pentatonic scale is probably the most commonly used scale overall, because it adapts well to various types of musical, from rock to pop, from blues to jazz, from country even to classical music. Why? As we will see, the Pentatonic Scale is a substitute of the
Major scale (seen in the theory section dedicated to the
construction of the scales) which is the starting point for the construction of all the scales. Comparing the two scales, the pentatonic has a more melodic character. In its minor form, it has always been associated with blues improvisation. Guitarists have taken advantage of this situation, to the point that beginners seem to be more facilitated in learning the minor pentatonic instead of a series of simple chords. This would seem to reduce the pentatonic to the role of a basic scale. There is nothing more wrong: the Scale Pentatonic has many variations, both of a harmonic nature as well as practical.
Construction of the
Pentatonic Scale
As a first step, we must analyze how the pentatonic scale is built.
It is necessary to clearly understand how the scales are built, if this is not the case, I strongly suggest that you return to that section before continuing.
There are two basic pentatonic scales: the Major Pentatonic Scale and the Minor Pentatonic Scale.
To build the Major Pentatonic Scale, you start from the major scale relative to the root. The example, as usual, is in C. Five notes are extracted from the major scale according to the following scheme:
Major Scale
| C | D | E | F | G | A | B | C |
| I° | II° | III° | IV° | V° | VI° | VII° | VIII° |
Major Pentatonic Scale
| C | D | E | G | A | C | ||
| I° | II° | III° | V° | VI° | VIII° |
Lets analyze the scale. First of all the scale is made of five notes, hence the name Pentatonic. The sixth note that you see in the line is the root one octave above, which is the closing note of the scale. The difference between the major and major pentatonic scale is that the quarter and the seventh degree are not present in the pentatonic. But there is another interesting detail, when starting from the root and adding a series of consecutive fifth intervals, we get the same notes that belong to the Pentatonic Scale, even though in different octaves. This situation can be seen below.
Now from the scale of C major we move to the relative minor, which is the scale of natural minor A. Also in this case there are five notes to extract. From the minor scale the first, third, fourth, fifth and seventh degrees are withdrawn.
Natural Minor scale
Minor Pentatonic scale
The mechanism is very simple. Using the tables of the major scale and the minor scale, try to build the two types of pentatonic scales in all the roots. It's not very difficult, because you only need to extract the relative degrees from the scale, which are found below:
Major Pentatonic scale
I° - II° - III° - V° - VI°
Minor Pentatonic scale
I° - III° - IV° - V° - VII°
For those who want to devote some more time to this, you can memorize the calculations of the intervals in all of the roots in both ways.
After all this theory, we can now play the pentatonic scales.
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