Pentatonic is Definition, examples

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Many people are into music. Music is a great way to increase the strength of a person's spirit or comfort him in sadness. A music school is a wonderful institution that allows you to learn the basics, as well as many of the nuances of how to master this or that instrument. Many beginners in the musical craft go there at the beginning of their journey. Those people who begin to learn how to play the guitar often wonder what the pentatonic scale is on the guitar. From this article we will find out the answer to this question. In addition, we will know what the pentatonic steps are.

Guidelines

In the event that you would in no way want to master the pentatonic scale, but nevertheless you would like to be able to come up with an amazing solo on an acoustic or electric guitar, then sooner or later you would still have to face by this term. Why sohappening?

Studying what the pentatonic scale is on the guitar is inevitable because the pentatonic scale is a scale in which there are 5 sounds. The peculiarity of this scale is that it fundamentally does not have semitones, as well as sounds that tritones can form.

Pentatonic scale popularity

It would be difficult to say which of the most famous guitarists (and also bassists, keyboardists, as well as many other members of the musical fraternity) could not use the pentatonic scale. For example, the blues pentatonic scale is an aspect without which improvisation is impossible. And, in principle, this is a rather difficult thing to imagine - a game without improvisation.

Theoretical introduction

Since the pentatonic scale is a five-step mode, unlike any diatonic scales, it does not consist of 7, but only of 5 sounds. This is the power of this technique of playing the guitar. The musical school of ancient China in the seventh century elevated this technique to the status of a philosophical postulate. It was believed that each note of this scale denoted a peculiar, certain mystical effect on individuals and society as a whole.

Types of pentatonic scales

There are two types of pentatonic scales. At the same time, the minor pentatonic scale is just as popular as the major one.

The minor principles of the pentatonic scale are almost exactly the same as the major ones. The difference is only in a slightly different tone. This is due to the parallelism of this tone. Thus, wewe get the pentatonic scale by removing the fourth and seventh steps from the major scale. At the same time, we remove the second and sixth steps from the minor. That is why this rule of parallelism is great for pentatonic.

So, the most important rule sounds like this: a parallel minor can be built on the sixth step of the minor, while retaining all the signs on the key, if any. In addition, there is an option to retreat from the major tonic by one minor third down, in which case the minor tonic will come out. Simply put, this will happen two frets down the string.

Let's imagine that we want to improvise some melody in the key of A minor. It is necessary to find the note A on any of the strings, consult the minor pentatonic principle and place the rest of the notes directly considering the main tonic. The width of the pentatonic scale consists of four frets. Four fingers are directly responsible for the four frets, each of your fingers is responsible for the note in its own fret. The term for this is positional play.

The main advice given to beginners is to play all pentatonic scales from the lowest to the highest note, and then vice versa. When you learn how to directly play all these figures in the very initial version, then you can start and vary the game. It must be remembered that the easiest way to play scales is to play these elements in eighth notes. In this case, we are talking about duration. Remember that there are two notes per beat. For example, consider the pentatonic scale in A minor.

Exercise to consolidate technique

Let's take the A on the third string. This point will be the tonic, the second fret. Now take the third string with your index finger and get directly to the second position. Now start playing on the third fret of the sixth string itself. In this place the lowest sound. Then follow the instructions on the table.

In this example, the bottom line, tablature, is the guitar neck itself. At the same time, its first string is at the top, while the sixth is at the bottom. On the right is the body of the tool, but on the left - the tuning pegs. The fret number is shown on the strings. At the same time, it is depicted, taking into account all the notes located above.

There is another interesting way. This method is called - triol. In it, every fourth share is divided directly into three identical parts. Every three notes should sound, which is important, evenly over one beat. The classic example in this case is the w altz. Let's remember the standard w altz tempo, as we saw it, for example, in films - "one-two-three-one-two-three".

Let's consider the major pentatonic scale

Let's talk in more detail about what the major pentatonic scale is. This technique can be obtained by removing the fourth and seventh steps from the most natural C major scale. Accordingly, the formula of this technique is: 3 (do) - 2 (re) - 3 (mi) - 5 (s alt) - 6 (la).

Worth noticinghere's what. The fact is that the C major and A minor pentatonic scales actually consist of the same sounds. However, due to the fact that they all have very different interval structures, they differ. In this case, the rule of paired keys itself applies to them. These are major-minor keys that have the same number of accidentals in their key. For example - C major - A minor, G major - E minor (or F sharp). Thus, it turns out that the pentatonic boxes on the guitar, if we consider them in relation to this property, are universal. In other words, the C major and A minor pentatonic scales have the same fingering in their structure. However, at the same time, the location of the tonal center itself, as well as other steps, differ from each other.

Semitone pentatonic scale

In Japanese folk music, as well as, in principle, Asian, half-tone pentatonic is popular. There are quite widely known five-step series, in addition to the main seven-step sound series.

The semitone pentatonic scale is a type of pentatonic scale common among the countries of the East. An example of such a pentatonic scale is the following: e-f-g-g-a. Intervals in this case are semitones (that is, small seconds). In this case, the intervals are e-f and g-g.

More pentatonic examples

By the way, there is also mixed pentatonic and tempered. The mixed one combines the properties of halftone and classical, non-halftone pentatonic scales, while the temperamental one is the Indonesian type of the slendro scale. It has neithertones, not semitones.

Pentatonic Guitarists

One of the most prominent guitarists of modern times, R. Fripp, said that it usually takes five or six years of practice to master one of the scales. However, many people think that the more scales they know, the better for them. In order to describe this phenomenon, one can use the well-known and extremely good folk expression "grab vershoks." Such people, instead of expanding and deepening their knowledge and understanding of what is already known, jump from one straight to another without mastering anything.

Because the pentatonic scale is the easiest and most popular way to master the scales, it is found in all styles of music. There are a huge number of reasons for this. The main thing, most likely, is in the most neutral sound of this technique. Miles Davis used the pentatonic scale especially heavily in his improvisations. Including even where it might seem unacceptable.

Isolation from natural frets

However, in addition to the huge advantages of the pentatonic scale, it also has one big disadvantage. The fact is that its sound quickly becomes boring and it becomes quite difficult to come up with something unusual within the same fret. The main standard way to diversify the sound of the pentatonic scale is to add a 5b step and a blues style. In addition, many people use tonic pentatonic scales for each of their new chords. In the blues tradition, it is customaryuse one pentatonic scale for about all the chords in the sequence.

Nevertheless, there is, among other things, another wonderful way that helps to expand the expressiveness and possibilities of the pentatonic scale. Using this method, you can create extremely unusual sounds, while using only 5 notes. This method is called "singling out the pentatonic scale from natural frets".

To begin with, let's take the three most common modes: Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian. Now memorize the connection of the chord with the corresponding fret. Following this, you need to find the pentatonic scale inside each of the frets. Due to the fact that there are only five possible types of arrangement of sounds in the pentatonic scale itself, our goal is to find variants of these invocations in the mode we have chosen.

Using the most simple principle, now we start trying all possible options from each note. Moreover, if it is in no way possible to build a major second from the note itself, then in this case we will have only one option left (namely, start with a minor third). If we generalize the result obtained, we will get the conclusion, according to which each step of a certain pentatonic scale can also correspond to its own pentatonic scale. You can give an analogy of harmonizing the scale with chords. As a result, we get seven pentatonic scales in order to beat one chord. We can use any of them to open up many different and new possibilities for playing chords.

This principle is extremely good for improvisation. Youyou can, without hesitation, create the modal pentatonic sound itself. Let's say you can remember that with each major major it is possible to use the pentatonic scale, which is located half a step below the main tone itself. You will be able to play B-minor pentatonic on C-major.

Well, now you've learned that the pentatonic scale is a great way to learn the guitar and even delve into it.