The Minor Pentatonic

The minor pentatonic scale on its surface seems a bit different than the major pentatonic scale.   Here’s A minor pentatonic:

The major pentatonic consists of the root note, major second, major third, perfect fifth and major sixth.   The minor pentatonic has the root, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth and minor seventh.   That sounds hard, but there’s a trick.  If you already know the major pentatonic scales, you know the minor ones too (and vice versa).

The most important thing to notice is that the notes in A minor pentatonic (a c d e g) are the same as the notes as C major pentatonic.  So you already know A minor pentatonic!   The relationship holds in general: the notes in a major pentatonic scale are the same as the notes in the relative minor’s pentatonic scale.  Count down three semitones to go from major to relative minor.  C major goes to A minor  (count three semitones C->B->Bb->A).  The relative minor of G major is E minor (G->F#->F->E).  And so on.

Often the thinking goes the other way.  For example, you might have a song in a minor key (or it’s a blues, see below), so you’ll want to jam in the minor pentatonic of that key.  You forget the notes but you remember the rule that the notes are the same as in the pentatonic scale of the relative major.  To find the relative major of a minor key, count up three semitones,   So if your key is Am, you need to use the notes of C major pentatonic, C being the relative major of A minor, up three semitones from A (A->A#->B->C).

Fun factoid: The open strings on a guitar in standard tuning (e a d g b e) are the notes of E minor pentatonic or G major pentatonic.  You can barre across all the strings (or just put on a capo) to get other pentatonic scales.

Next: The Blues Scale