Minor Pentatonic

The Minor Pentatonic is a Minor Scale Type. (Clearly!) It Differs from the Natural Minor scale in that the second and the sixth notes are omitted.

This scale is really the essence of blues. It has the old school blues sound built right in. Please notice the inclusion of the blue note, frequently added to the minor pentatonic as a passing tone. Experiment with this note and notice all the tasty morsels that may be created.

As was noted with the Major Pentatonic the Minor pentatonic is also Mongolian and Japanese in it’s origins and is important to the music of Eastern cultures.

The Major and Minor Pentatonic scales have the same tonal relationship as do the Natural Major and Minor scales. That is 3 semi-tones down from the Major to the realative Minor and 3 semi-tones up from the Minor to the relative Major.

David Gilmour utilizes the minor pentatonic in his bluesey, expressive, epic solos.

(A Major key and its “relative” Minor share all the same notes, they just start and end on different notes!)