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Understanding the Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales

Home › Forums › Active Melody Guitar Lessons › Understanding the Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales

  • This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 6 months ago by Brian.
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    • February 22, 2011 at 3:55 pm #3818
      Harley
      Participant

        Playing the Em Pent. scale, fingurings are: 12-15, 12-14, 12-14, 12-14, 12-15, 12-15. Brian say if you move down (back) three frets you are now playing E major pent. scale. Same fingurings. I thought this was relative scale. I’m having trouble getting my head around playing minor, moving down three frets and now it is same scale except now it is major. Uuurhhh.

      • February 23, 2011 at 12:46 am #7443
        Brian
        Participant

          Hey Harley, it’s crazy but it works… by shifting that basic pattern (scale) down 3 frets you basically fall into the major pentatonic scale. Technically there are 2 additional notes you can add to make it the TRUE pentatonic, but the purpose of explaining that is to demonstrate how by memorizing one pattern, you’ve really got 2 scales. It makes it easy to switch back and forth between the 2.

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