Understanding Pentatonic Guitar Scales

In this article we take a quick look at two of the most widespread and important pentatonic guitar scales. It is essential that you learn to master them. But before we look at them…what the heck is a pentatonic scale anyway?

Simply put, pentatonic scales are five-note scales. Anytime a scale has five notes it can conveniently be called a pentatonic scale. Pretty simple huh? Let’s now take a look at what I feel are the two most common ones…

The Major Pentatonic Scale

The Major Pentatonic scale is an incredibly useful scale that is used in many styles of guitar playing. It has the following scale degrees…

1  2  3  5  6

So, what exactly does the above formula tell us? It tells us what we need to do to the major scale, in order to create the major pentatonic scale. Let’s take a look at an example to make this clear…

In order to work out the notes of the E Major Pentatonic scale, we would do the following…

Step 1: Write out the notes and scale degrees of the E Major scale…

Doing this would give us this…

E  F#  G#  A  B  C#  D#
1   2     3    4   5   6    7

Step 2: Remove the 4 and 7 from the E Major scale….

Because the formula of the Major Pentatonic scale doesn’t contain a 4 or 7, these need to be removed. Removing the 4 and 7 from the E Major scale would give us…

E  F#  G#  B  C#
1   2    3     5    6

These are the scale degrees and notes of the E Major Pentatonic scale.

ACTION STEPS: Please do the following…

• Make up at least five different scale fingerings for the E Major Pentatonic scale.
• Memorize the notes names and scales degrees of it.

The Minor Pentatonic Scale

This is another really important pentatonic guitar scale. In my opinion, ALL improvising guitarists need to learn this one. Yup…it’s THAT important! Here are the scale degrees that make up the Minor Pentatonic scale…

1  b3  4  5  b7

As an example, let’s work out the notes of the E Minor Penatonic scale…

Step 1: Write out the notes and scale degrees of the E Major scale…

E  F#  G#  A  B  C#  D#
1   2     3    4   5   6    7

Step 2: Remove the 2 and 6 from the E Major scale…

We have to remove these scale degrees because the formula of the Minor Pentatonic scale doesn’t have a 2 or 6. Removing the 2 and 6 gives us the following…

E  G#  A  B  D#
1   3    4   5   7

Step 3: Flatten the 3 and 7 of the E Major scale…

We do this because the formula of the Minor Pentatonic scale has a b3 and b7. Flattening these two notes gives us…

E  G  A  B  D
1  b3  4  5  b7

These are the notes and scale degress of the E Minor Pentatonic scale.

ACTION STEPS: Now that you know how to work out the notes of the E Minor Pentatonic Scale, please do the following two things…

• Memorize both the note names and scale degrees of the E Minor Pentatonic scale.
• Make up at least five different scale fingerings for it.

I hope you enjoyed this short introduction to pentatonic guitar scales! If you are an improvising guitarist who wants to master pentatonics and other guitar scales, then I recommend learning more about the Guitar Scale Mastery membership website.