Minor Pentatonic

Why it fits everything

Dorian and Aeolian differ in the sixth; Aeolian and Phrygian differ in the second. Remove both from the minor scale and what is left is the part all three modes agree on. The result is a scale that cannot be wrong about the mode, because it has removed the evidence.

That is a strength when the harmony is ambiguous or moving, and a limitation when it is not. A minor pentatonic solo tells you nothing about whether the piece is Dorian or Aeolian, so it is a poor tool when that distinction is the point.

The first shape on the guitar

On the fretboard it falls into a two-note-per-string box that transposes by sliding, and it is almost universally the first scale a guitarist learns. Blues, rock, and metal leads are built from it, often within a single position for an entire solo.

The standard next step is not a new scale but the same one plus the flat fifth, giving the blues scale. One added note, and the whole vocabulary of bends and passing tones that goes with it.

Over chords it does not belong to

Played over a dominant seventh a whole step below its root it produces ninths and elevenths rather than clashes, which is the usual explanation for why blues players sound modern without thinking in extensions. Played over a major chord from its own third it becomes the major pentatonic.

The flexibility comes from the same source as the ambiguity: five notes spaced widely enough that most of them are consonances against most chords.

Confusions and neighbours

The minor pentatonic is regularly confused with the blues scale, which is this plus one note, and with Aeolian, which is this plus two. Both confusions are harmless in practice and become real only when someone claims to be playing a mode while playing the pentatonic — the notes that would prove it are missing.

It is a rotation of the major pentatonic: A minor pentatonic and C major pentatonic share all five notes. Its close relative in sound is the blues minor, another rotation of the same set.

Frequently asked questions