More on Minor Blues

 

Q: I was just watching the video of you doing the minor blues for the Australian movie soundtrack. I have a few questions about it. I can tell it's a minor blues but what is that chord that pops up in the 3rd bar? And what else is going on in the progression. What are some of the things you are plying in the solo? Especially the pentatonic scale things that you are doing. Great song!!

A: Thanks! Glad you like the tune. Your ears do not deceive you my friend, it is pretty much a minor blues with a few twists. The song is for a movie with some underworld type characters so I wanted it to be creepy. That's where that strange chord comes in to play in the 3rd bar. I've always liked tritones (diminished 5th intervals) and that is exactly what I have going on here.

Pentatonic Scales

Q: The way you use pentatonic scales fascinates me. Not only does it sound cool, it is easy since most of us already know the patterns. In your book and on your site lesson: superimposing pentatonic scales, you describe the guidelines perfectly well (as in "play a minor pentatonic scale on the 3rd, 6th and 7th of any major chord") but what is the theory behind this? How and why does it work?

A: Good question. I suppose you are at the point in your studies where you need to question these things. I did the same thing a long time ago. I learned about the concept of superimposing minor pentatonic scales years ago and by simply memorizing the rules I could apply the concept any time I saw fit. Let's review the basic rules:

For a major chord:

Play a minor pentatonic scale on the 3rd, 6th and/or 7th degree of the chord

Let's try it. Record yourself a long Cmaj7 or Cmaj9 vamp. What is the 3rd, 6th and 7th of this chord? The 3rd is E, the 6th is A and the 7th is B. If you can't understand this yet, this lesson is too much for you so you should go back and study theory starting with scales, chords and intervals. Go here for that lesson >>>

It doesn't matter what scale pattern you play as long as you play the proper pentatonic scales. E is the 3rd of the C chord so you can play an E minor pentatonic scale. Try it and you'll see. Be a little careful though because the usual lines you play might not work as well but in general all the notes are OK. 

Why does it work? Well, the best way to figure that out is by comparing the chord to the scale. Let's see, the scale looks like this:

E-G-A-B-D and compared to the chord, these notes are the 3-5-6-7-2 of the C major chord. These are all very consonant tones and match the chord with little rubbing or grinding. it actually looks like a C69 chord if you place all the notes on top of each other.

Next, let's look at the minor pentatonic scale from the 6th. The 6th of C is A so an A minor pentatonic scale is what we are looking for. The A minor pentatonic scale looks like this:

A-C-D-E-G and compared to the C chord: 6-1-2-3-5. All perfectly nice sounding notes over the C major chord. I bet someone out there figured this out already but what we have created is simply the C major pentatonic scale with here. Right? A minor pentatonic and C major pentatonic are the same scales.

Next up, the minor pentatonic scale on the 7th. The 7th of C is B so B minor pentatonic is what we're looking for: B-D-E-F#-A or 7-2-3-#4-6. Now this looks very lydian to me because of the #4 (or #11 if you prefer).

All three of these scales combined give you the C lydian scale. Check it out yourself. C lydian: C-D-E-F#-G-A-B or 1-2-3-#4-5-6-7. 

Now, go on, get to work. Over your Cmaj9 vamp, try all three of these scales. 

The pentatonic scales always intrigue me because by simply taking 2 notes away from the 7 note scale you get something that actually has more personality. Less is more sometimes.

The next thing I did is look for the minor pentatonic scale patterns inside the scale itself. I mean, if all three pentatonic scale combined look like the lydian scale, all three must be inside somewhere. Take a look:

C lydian

Look, here is an E minor pentatonic scale:

And an A minor pentatonic scale:

And finally a B minor pentatonic scale:

Can you see that they are all inside the lydian scale?


We used our ears to make sure these scales work right? Next we used our eyes by looking inside the lydian scale and finding the three minor pentatonic scales. 

Now we'll use our brain. You can see this one more way. Remembering that there is a major pentatonic scale for every minor pentatonic scale:

E minor = G major 
A minor = C major and 
B minor = D major. 

Now look at the diatonic chords in the key of G major (G major is the same as C lydian):

G - Amin - Bmin - C - D - Emin- F#dim


Are you getting my point here? The three diatonic minor and the three diatonic major chords = the same three minor and major pentatonic scales that work over our C chord.


I've basically examined the minor pentatonic scales that work over major family chords. If you want to investigate more, go to the original lesson >>>

Using Pentatonic Scales

Q: I've obviously learned all the 5 minor pentatonic boxes over time, and am wondering if im using them in the best way. For example over Cmaj7-Am7-Dm7-G7 I use the A minor pentatonic box shapes. Is this a common thing to do? Sometimes it sounds a bit too 'off the mark' and unfocused dues to playing bluesy licks based in these positions over a major chord progression.Do you use this approach ever? It just seems learning all the 5 blues boxes has got to be more useful than JUST playing over blues don't you agree?

A: Regarding your Cmaj7-Amin7-Dmin7-G7 and pentatonic scale question:

There are many things to consider here. Genre and your level as an improviser. If you are starting out, I think the most important thing is to get you playing, so I might tell you; Yes, use the A minor/C major pentatonic scale over the whole thing. But assuming you have more experience, I would give you slightly different advice.

Anytime you use any given scale oven a progression, the most important notes in the scale are the notes that are also in each of the passing chords and therefore need to be focused on. Looking at the A minor/C major pentatonic scale: C-D-E-G-A.

Now look at the chords:
Cmaj7: C-E-G-B
Amin7: A-C-E-G
Dmin7: D-F-A-C
G7: G-B-D-F
The red notes are common notes with the pentatonic scale and the ratio (chord tones/scale tones):
Cmaj7: C-E-G-B (3/5)
Amin7: A-C-E-G (4/5)
Dmin7: D-F-A-C (3/5)
G7: G-B-D-F (2/5)

You can see that regarding the first two chords, the C major pentatonic scale is dead on. Dmin7 is ok, but take notice, the strongest tone, the 3rd of the chord is not included. The scale is very weak against the G7 chord, only the root and 5th and no 3rd. This is probably why you say that sometimes the scale is "off the mark." There aren't enough common tones for the G7 chord for it to sound on. You could make it work by really aiming for the G and D notes on the V chord, like you would with the blues.

If you wanted to take a pentatonic scale approach, it would seem that it would be better to:

A) Use the C major/A minor pentatonic scale but don't approach it like you are playing in A minor or A blues, rather treat it as the progression it is: An Cmaj7-Amin7-Dmin7-G7 progression making an effort to start on a chord tone every time the chord changes. If you think you can play the same licks like you would over an A Blues, it will sound wrong.

B) Use the C major/A minor pantatonic scale over the first three chords, and a G major pentatonic scale over the last.

C) Use the C major/A minor pentatonic scale over the first two chords, a D minor pentatonic scale over the Dmin7 chord and a G major pentatonic scale over the last.

As an example, take a listen to this video of me playing in Tokyo. The song is Jimi Hendrix' "Little Wing." I'm mostly playing an E minor pentatonic scale over the whole thing but play a D major pentatonic scale over the final D chord in the progression. The top of the chorus where I do this is at 6:30 and I use the D major pentatonic scale at: 7:00:



You have to take into consideration the extensions on the chords though. For example your ratio will change if you make the chords into min9 or min11 chords. In this case there would be better scale choices.

A Jazz player would be more inclined to take more of a chord tone approach or modal approach.
Links:

• Pentatonic Scale Applications
• Playing The Blues
  -CJ