ROCK
Take your rock and blues chops to the next level with a veritable arsenal of amazing licks, join David Gerrish as he explores how to get the most from this cornerstone of guitar music.
It’s unlikely that many would disagree with the notion that Pentatonic scales are the guitarist’s best friend. Used in every genre of music and countless songs of the past 70 odd years, it really is as versatile as it is valuable. Its handy two-notes-per-string layout and uncomplicated musical application has made it the perfect choice. Whether it’s Jimmy Page crafting riffs, Gary Moore blazing or Eric Johnson improvising over vast instrumentals, the Pentatonic is there as a foundation, the main ingredient, and the secure footing for great players.
The name of the scale comes from the Greek word ‘penta’, meaning five, and ‘tonic’ referring to tones, so it’s easy to discern that we are dealing with a five-note scale. Viewed simply, we are taking two notes away from the Major scale, avoiding the semitone intervals and leaving us with a scale that is rather user-friendly, as each note will sound good (although some will sound better than others) over the diatonic chords in a given key. There are no ‘avoid’ notes. This gives us a great way in to improvising as we don’t need to worry too much about hitting certain notes over each chord, or ‘playing the changes’ (although we would always advocate doing so, where possible).
The Major Pentatonic intervals are R-2-3-5-6, while the Minor Pentatonic’s are R-b3-4-5-b7, often presented in five positions across the neck, following the CAGED system (each of our examples follows these positions). Get these memorised as a priority to unlocking the fretboard. Once you have done this, it is important to see each note as an interval in relation to the root. Learning to identify all of the 3rds or 5ths in a Pentatonic scale, for example, will mean that you can target each of these when improvising, leaving out any element of guess work as well as allowing for more confidence when changing chord or key.
Of course any scale is to music what the alphabet is to language. Yes, it’s fundamental that we know it, but using it is a different story. As with language, nothing beats practice along with care
