General Music Chat

Everybody here is likely hip to pentatonic scales and the closely related blues scale that adds the flat 5th to a minor pent scale. Likely that we all know how to use them, but here are some cool uses of them that you may or may not be aware of.

To start with.... a major pent scale is exactly the same as it's relative minor pent scale. for instance CMaj pent uses the same notes as Am pent.

So, when you use an Am pent scale over a CMaj chord the notes of interest that are within the C Maj scale... but NOT in a CMaj chord are the notes A and D. ah...cool, the 6th and the 9th of a CMaj chord.

Now lets look at some other places to plug in an Am pent scale and what that gives us.....

If you hang an Am pent over a GMaj chord you get all the cool chord extensions (9th, 11th, 13th) :

here are the Am pent notes and how they relate to that G Maj chord:

A = 9th (of GMaj)
C = 11th (of GMaj)
D = 5th (of GMaj)
E = 13th (of GMaj)
G = root (of GMaj)

this is a super easy way to get to the unaltered chord extensions of any chord! the rule is go up a whole step to the minor chord above your major....example above we're in G Maj and we jump up to Am pent.

now here's something pretty cool.....that also works for minor chords too! you can use that exact same move to find the chord extensions of a minor chord.

hang that same Am pent over a Gm chord and voila....same relationships!

now, this work best in higher registers as things can get a little murky if you do this lower down.

ok, here's another cool use for that Am pent scale:

if you superimpose it over a Dm chord here are the notes of the Am pent, this time as they relate to a Dm chord:

A = 5th (of Dm)
C = b7th (of Dm)
D = root (of Dm)
E = 9th (of Dm)
G = 11th (of Dm)

the rule....when a playing a minor chord, go up a perfect fifth and use that pent scale


one more use ....hang that Am pent over a D7 chord,

A = 5th (of D7)
C = b7th (of D7)
D = root (of D7)
E = 9th (of D7)
G = 11th (of D7)

Very useful info Mark thanks for posting. I know most of this instinctively but didn't really know why. I highly value your knowledge of theory!

Good stuff as always... Like Mr. Haley says, we do a lot of it instinctively but for some reason I'm always searching for rules. (it's the programmer in me)

Talbot