Most of us when we start out on the guitar learn the pentatonic shapes which is great they are a lot of fun! But what if we wanted to turn them into Major scales or minor scales? That’s the focus in this article! In this article it will cover the topics of:
Lets just start with what makes each type of scale unique.
What Makes The Pentatonic Special?
With the minor pentatonic scale, it has 5 notes from the root those are Root minor 3rd, fourth, fifth flat 7 and then back to root.
The great thing about this scale is that because of the spacing between each note makes the scale easy to sing which is why it lends itself to some great solos in the past. The scale also has the colour tones of the minor 3rd
and the flatten 7th
which is found in minor 7th chords and altered dominant chords. These are the flavour or colour tones that help sound out the feel of these chords and gives you the most information in the music you are playing over. But what if we want to embellish and have more of a detailed solo/ or mood? that’s where 7 note scales come into play.
What Makes 7 Note Scales Special?
what makes 7 note scales special is that they have the full musical information to play with if played in over the right chord. It has the full amount of notes that are played in a fully extended chord.
Which gives you all the melodic detail missing from a 5 note scale.
You still have to be careful with how you use the notes as some notes can clash with the chord if you are not careful. If you see the diagrams presented below you can see a full natural minor scale which belongs over the chord A minor 11 flat 13 chord
As you begin to play the scale you can hear that all the notes from the scale can be found in this fully extended chord.
This helps for soloing because if we play the same scale the natural minor scale over a drone note i.e. just one note.
We can hear the relationships between each note creating the colour of the natural minor scale.
use the same diagram above with this sound
The same can be done with the major scale heres what it sounds like in its full context.
Here is what it sounds like over a drone note:
use the previous diagram with the new sound
After hearing how these 7 note scales add colour you maybe thinking how do we turn our pentatonics into these scales?
How To Change Our Pentatonics Into 7 Note Scales
If we take a look again at the pentatonic scale with the intervals Root minor 3rd 4th 5th flat 7th. we know that it has 5 notes which means to make it a 7 note scale we need to just add 2 intervals.
The missing intervals are the major 2nd
and the minor 6th
Let's see what that looks like in each pentatonic shape.
If you follow these examples, you can morph your pentatonics into the natural minor scale. you can change them into other types of 7 note minor scales but that’s beyond the scope of this article. Let’s have a look at the major pentatonic and what intervals are involved in creating the major pentatonic. With the major pentatonic we have the Root, Major 2nd, Major 3rd, 5th and Major 6th.
(diagram of major pentatonic)
To turn the major pentatonic into a Major scale its missing 2 intervals the perfect 4th
and the major 7th.
This is how the major pentatonics are changed into Major scales
Using this article to expand your vocabulary to major and natural minor scales should enable you to make your solos sound more intricate and interesting. My advice is to get familiar with them and to practice them slowly with the idea of knowing where the intervals are in each position. This will give you a great advantage of knowing where to find the sounds you want. If you have found this article useful or helpful in anyway feel free to share it to those who need to see it and stay tuned for more informative articles written by Nick Weiland
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