« | Home | »

Learn Guitar Secret #8 – Major Pentatonic Scale System B major

By Mike Hayes | February 11, 2010

After a few feeble attempts at lead guitar many guitarists throw
their hands up in the air in despair, muttering something like “I
knew I couldn’t do it …I knew I was tone deaf!”

Are they really tone deaf or is it a case of “those who know how
to do it” can do it and “those who don’t know how to do it” can’t
do it?

The answer is … they have not simply learnt ‘how’ to play lead
guitar; it has nothing to do with being naturally talented or
having a good ear for music. It only takes a few wrong notes (one
actually) to convince everyone (particularly the guitarist) that
they should give it away and stick to playing chords.

A solid understanding of basic theory especially chord/scale
relationships can help the guitarist overcome the “tone deaf”
situation and once your confidence increases you can try more and
more adventurous scale options.

But where to start? Pentatonic scales of course! Should you learn
the minor pentatonic or the major pentatonic scale … I’d learn
both scales and most importantly I’d learn how to use them.

Today our focus is on the B major pentatonic scale, if you are
interested in the B minor pentatonic scale you might like to
check out my article on that scale.

B major pentatonic scale:

The notes in the B major pentatonic scale are …

B – C# – D# – F# – G# – [B]

Keynotes indicated as [ ]

B Major pentatonic scale pattern

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

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

———————————
—————————[12]–
——————11—13——–
–[9]—11—13——————
———————————
———————————

Major pentatonic scales will work over major chords and their
suspensions e.g., sus 2 and sus 4 chords.

Application:

Here is a typical major pentatonic type chord progression using
straight major chords

B ///| B ///| B ///| B ///|
E ///| E ///| B ///| B ///|
F#///| E ///| B ///| B ///||

Here’s the same progression sprinkled with some suspended 4th
chords, the B major pentatonic will work over all these chords.

B ///| Bsus4 ///| B ///| Bsus4 ///|
E ///| Esus4 ///| B ///| Bsus4 ///|
F#///| Esus4 ///| B ///| Bsus4 ///||

This progression could also be written like this …

B ///| Bsus ///| B ///| Bsus ///|
E ///| Esus ///| B ///| Bsus ///|
F#///| Esus ///| B ///| Bsus ///||

It’s the exact same chord progression written differently;
suspended fourth chords can be abbreviated to sus which
automatically implies a suspended fourth; whereas the suspended
second chord has to be identified as follows …

B2 ///| B2 ///| B2 ///| B2 ///|
E2 ///| E2 ///| B2 ///| B2 ///|
F#2///| E2 ///| B2 ///| B2 ///||

or

Bsus2 ///| Bsus2 ///| Bsus2 ///| Bsus2 ///|
Esus2 ///| Esus2 ///| Bsus2 ///| Bsus2 ///|
F#sus2///| Esus2 ///| Bsus2 ///| Bsus2 ///||

One move set of chords that works well is the major triad (chord)
with the addition of an added second which produces the following
progression.

B(add2)///| B(add2)///| B(add2)///| B(add2)///|
E(add2)///| E(add2)///| B(add2)///| B(add2)///|
F#(add2)///| E(add2)///| B(add2)///| B(add2)///||

Remember the B major pentatonic will work over all these examples
ideally you should experiment with the different chord textures
and make up your own chord progressions, record the progressions
and try the B major pentatonic scale over the pre-record chord
progressions next time you play the guitar.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.