Chords of the Pentatonic

The pentatonic scale has five unique notes.  Any chord we make out of five possible notes will have each note either in or out of the chord, thus there are only 2^5=32 combinations of five notes to consider. One is a rest (don’t play any notes) and five are single notes, leaving 26 “real” chords with at least two notes. 

Let’s write all 32 out.  There’s a kind of symmetry (not illustrated) where for each chord there’s another chord with all the notes in the pentatonic scale except those in the first chord.  So there are the same number of four note chords as single notes -- five, the same number of zero note “chords” as five note chords -- one, and the same number of two note chords as three note chords -- ten of each.

Here are all the chords from the pentatonic scale.  I’ve given each a name, some familiar and some less so.  Each name is generally just one name among many that each chord has.

Note there are lots chords labeled sus2, sus4 or no3, each of which is an indication that the chord doesn’t have a third, so is ambiguous about whether it’s major or minor.  If the plan is to use the names as a hint of which pentatonic scale to play over it, sometimes this tonal ambiguity is an illusion.  Keep in mind the Cno3 and Csus2 above are all going to turn into a flavor of C major when you start playing the C major pentatonic scale over them.  Similarly, Ano3 and A7no3 turn into A minor.

Let’s just start reviewing some of the chords.  I’ll name the sections with the chord based on C, but of course you, dear reader, should endeavor to learn to play each chord type using all 12 roots.

Next: C69 - The Entire Pentatonic Scale in One Chord