Major Pentatonic

We’ve spent a tremendous amount of effort covering the minor pentatonic scale because it’s the simplest and most generally useful scale for soloing. Again, the minor pentatonic scale works even over major chord progressions (with care) but the opposite is definitely not true. Major scales generally sound terrible over minor chords.

The huge majority of songs are written in major keys, however, so it’s time we learned how to play major pentatonic scales.

The good news is the box shapes are actually identical (just shifted down three frets)!

The bad news is that you must think about the notes within the shapes completely differently to use them effectively.

Background

As covered previously, The minor pentatonic scale comprises the root, ♭3, P4, P5, and ♭7 scale degrees. In the key of Am, that’s the notes A, C, D, E, and G.

Diatonic theory taught us that every major scale (“Ionian mode”) has a relative minor (Aeolian mode) and vice versa.

In other words, the white keys on a piano can either be thought of as the C Major scale, or the A minor scale.

In the same way, the notes from the Am pentatonic scale are the same as the C Major pentatonic scale. The five notes C, D, E, G, and A now become the root, M2, M3, P5, and M6 of the Major pentatonic scale.

The same single octave “frying pan” we looked at earlier can be minor or major, depending on context:

Note that the root is now located at the “toe” of the pan rather than the heel!

The same thing happens with multi-octave patters. Here’s “box 1” shown first as Am pentatonic, then as C Major pentatonic:

It’s the same notes!

The shapes are identical, but the function of the notes changes.

Even the blue note is still the blue note. It now functions as a ♭3 instead of a ♭5!

While our fingers are already familiar with the box shapes, we still need to program our ears and brain to start “seeing” them in a major context rather than minor.