If you’ve ever played some of the licks in “Wind Cries Mary” or “Melissa,” you’ve played major pentatonic licks. But students often ask me to explain the theory behind this major mode application of the minor pentatonic scale. It’s quite simple, but there are still a few ins and outs that can help your own licks and improvisations sound more musical. What follows is an explanation of the theory including some lick examples with video and tab plus useful scale applications.
What is the major pentatonic mode? Basically, most scales are either of a major or minor quality in general. The two most obvious examples would be the diatonic major and minor scales, such as, C major and A minor. Each major scale has a relative minor scale and vice versa. For example, C major is the relative major of A minor, and C# minor is the relative minor of E major. The same relationship holds true for pentatonic scales. In this article we will explore the relationship between A major and F# minor pentatonic, which are relatives, and E major and C# minor pentatonic, which are also relatives.
The “Three Fret Rule”
In the simplest terms, you can create the major pentatonic scale for a given key by taking the Form I minor pentatonic or blues scale, the one everybody learns first, and moving it down the fretboard to a spot three frets away. Hence, A minor pentatonic at the fifth fret becomes F# minor pentatonic at the second fret. But, and it’s a big but, you retain A as the tonic, and – another big one – it’s now A major pentatonic. It’s a good idea to look at these two scales and see what notes are in them. What’s different? What’s the same?
Our former A minor pentatonic scale, A – C – D – E – G, now has the following notes: A – B – C# – E – F#. What’s the same? Well, we still have an A, a C and an E, but the C is now sharped. We inherited a B, which is found in the A major scale, and an F#, which is also from the A major scale. If we wanted to complete the A major scale all we would need would be a D and a G#. Neat, huh? If you don’t want to know or try to understand all the theory, you can just work with the scale patterns and use your ear.
The Long Form Scales
Once I was showing a student an A major pentatonic long form scale and he said to me, “Oh, that’s the Dickey Betts scale!” I thought, “Validation!!” I find the long form pentatonic scales (see examples below) to work very well for playing pentatonic major runs and licks, mainly because the patterns seem to phrase well going back to the tonic, and also because there are nice little chains of “country” or “pedal steel” styled double stops. To make long form pentatonic scales, you take parts from three different scale forms (there are five in total), a low part, a middle part, and a high part, and you make one long scale out of them.
What kinds of music do you play with major pentatonic scales and licks? Rock and Roll, Country, the Blues and R&B, mostly. You can also mix them up (mode mixture), a technique that is especially prevalent in the blues and rock and roll. I’ve included some examples in the keys of A major and E major. You can add in the flat five from the blues scale, but now it has a different function. It still works as a passing tone but now also serves as a lower neighbor to the major third scale degree of the tonic triad. You can add the lower tonic to long form II for a more complete and root-based scale.
See also my Wilson Pickett article for a scorching major pentatonic blues application. There is also plenty that you can do with plain old box one (form I) and box two (form II). For example, in the key of A, if you move the form II blues box at the eighth fret down the neck to the fifth fret (again, three fret rule) so it sits right on top of where the minor pentatonic scale was, you have one of the prime major pentatonic boxes. Have fun and drop me a line if you have any questions! -Chris Botta.
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