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Learn Guitar Secret #6 – Major Pentatonic Scale System A major

By Mike Hayes | February 9, 2010

If you are playing lead guitar in a group and they say the next
song is in the key of ‘A’ the critical distinction for you to
make is … do I use major or minor pentatonic for my fill-in’s
and solos or both?

The key to making the correct choice is in the style of the music
being played and the chord progression of the song and it is
quite possible that you make even have to switch from one scale
to the other depending on the material.

Of course there are many types of scales that can be successfully
applied to any song so I’m generalizing here and going for the
most basic and safest scale options and they don’t come more
basic or safer than the pentatonic scale.

Essentially both the major and minor pentatonic scales are scales
that are devoid of semitones, these semitones create the tension
points in a scale they are the notes that if used correctly by an
experienced player will give directionality to they music;
however in the hands of an inexperienced player they are
potentially a disaster waiting to happen.

Since the newbie player does not yet have the experience to know
how to successfully create tension and release by the skillful
use of semitones a good way to go is start out by using scales
that don’t have any semitones.

Let’s take a look at the major and minor scales and see how this
works.

The major pentatonic scale can be created by omitting the fourth
and seventh notes of a major diatonic scale. Today we’re working
in the key of A.

The ‘A’ major diatonic scale:

A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# – A

Create the A Major pentatonic scale by omitting the fourth and
seventh notes …

A – B – C# – E – F# – A

The minor version of the pentatonic scale can be created from the
natural minor scale

The ‘A’ natural minor scale:

A – B – C – D – E – F – G – A

We create the ‘A’ minor pentatonic scale by omitting the second
and sixth notes of the natural minor scale:

A – C – D – E – G – A

As you can see there is only two notes common to both scales the
first and fifth notes “A” & “E’.

The notes in the A major pentatonic scale are …

A – B – C# – E – F# – [A]

Keynotes indicated as [ ]

A Major pentatonic scale pattern

—————————
—————————
—————————
———————-[7]–
————–7—9——–
-[5]–7—9—————-

The same scale one octave higher would be played like this:

——————————
————————[10]–
—————-9—11——–
–[7]—9—11—————-
——————————
——————————

These are just two ways of play the A major pentatonic scale try
different scale patterns to find the best way for you to play
them and always keep in mind that it’s the notes that make up the
scale not the fingering pattern.

Application:

Here is a typical major pentatonic type chord progression

A ///| A ///| A ///| A///|
D ///| D ///| A ///| A ///|
E ///| D ///| A ///| A ///||

Another way you could play this progression would be to use easy
‘open position’ chord shapes from the key of G i.e., G, C & D and
place a capo behind the second fret that way you would have nice
crisp sounding chords with lots of open strings and a fresh new
sound to practice your major pentatonic scale over.

By playing these shapes with the capo behind the second fret …

G ///| G ///| G ///| G///|
C ///| C ///| G ///| G ///|
D ///| C ///| G ///| G ///||

you will be playing these chords …

(capo behind the second fret – concert pitch of A)

A ///| A ///| A ///| A///|
D ///| D ///| A ///| A ///|
E ///| D ///| A ///| A ///||

We all know playing the guitar is a lot of fun but with a bit of
creative thinking you can have a very exciting and rewarding time
playing the guitar.

And now I’d like to invite you to get free access to my “How To Remember 1,000 Songs” eCourse. You can download the course for free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

You’ll learn about hit song templates, easy chords, simple scales, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar

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