# What's the use of "learning pentatonic"?



## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

I understand scales / modes just fine and I know that there's a fetish about playing blues utilizing some pentatonic scale or other; minor I think. It has been explained to me that you can't play a wrong note in pentatonic!!! And I sort of get that between playing pentatonic and bending out of it you can do some interesting things.

Does that make it worth practicing as a scale?


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## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)




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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

Doug Gifford said:


> Does that make it worth practicing as a scale?


I think one of its virtues is that there’s not enough there that you have to practice it much .. lol


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

What's the use in being able to add and subtract?

Bobby McFerrin rules btw.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

Wardo said:


> I think one of its virtues is that there’s not enough there that you have to practice it much .. lol


This quote by @Wardo needs to go in your musical quotes thread @Doug Gifford 

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"I started with the pentatonic scale and then I discovered the mixolydian mode." -- Frank Zappa. 

From personal experience, I quit playing blues because all I knew was the pentatonic and along with all the other lame guys doing it back in the day, it got real stale, real fast. 

In the past couple of years I have "re-discovered" blues by *AVOIDING* the pentatonic as much as possible. 

"You have twelve notes and they're all your friends". -- Unknown blues musician that played with my son.


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

It's a useful tool for layering different intervals over various chords. Scott Henderson does it all the time. Because it falls under the fingers so easily on guitar, it's an easy way to generate new sounds with familiar patterns.

Basic examples: play a minor pentatonic starting on the third of any major chord to add the 6th, 7th and 9th degrees. Or play a minor pentatonic a half step below a major chord for a Lydian sound.

I also like sequencing them in 4ths or building arpeggios out of them.

Some examples from Beato:





Scott Henderson mini-lesson:


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

They should be called the wankatonic scales.


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## crann (May 10, 2014)

James Collier would argue there's no such thing as a wrong note.

But back on topic, if you know scales and modes, you've probably been using the pentatonic scale (at least in sections). It's a stripped back major scale and I don't think you can play a "wrong" note in the major scale (Ionian mode).


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Yes.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Well, I suppose "you can't play a wrong note", and I tell folks that myself when they are learning, but it doesn't make for the most interesting soloing or melodic playing. The added notes, articulation, phrasing, and dynamics need to be considered immediately after not playing "a wrong note".


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Possibilities are inherent in the limitations; a pentatonic is a 5-note scale, and you can build them from any of the 7-note scales. The idea is to be able to change perspective around the notes you are using; forcing tonality and or modality. It becomes extremely limited if you have only one way of playing it and, in particular, only one way of looking at it.


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## HeavyMetalDan (Oct 5, 2016)

Doug Gifford said:


> I understand scales / modes just fine and I know that there's a fetish about playing blues utilizing some pentatonic scale or other; minor I think. It has been explained to me that you can't play a wrong note in pentatonic!!! And I sort of get that between playing pentatonic and bending out of it you can do some interesting things.
> 
> Does that make it worth practicing as a scale?


You can play a wrong note imo
But playing the 1,3 and 5 is a good start.
Then follow the chords and try to stop on the 1,3 or 5 of that chord. Tough but sounds great. Sometimes the b7 sounds killer too depending on the chord
Rock On 🪨 🎸 🤘 🥌


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

So, to sum up my understanding… it's a useful set of stepping stones to get you through. You are, though, free to modify those steps as your ear and the idiom suggest and, on guitar, they are good bases to bend from or to. It's used melodically but may be used in conjunction with harmonies that include other notes. Or it may be an integral part of a melody that evolves into something more complex. Reasonable?


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## CathodeRay (Jan 12, 2018)

I've been practicing "blending" modes and pentatonics, which opens up a really interesting pallette of moods.

I just started trying this the other day, and I'm not big on theory. I'm just looking for a mood to convey. It's quite useful.

For example, last night I was playing in this scale:

D E G A C D

BTW I have no clue what that would be called lol. D Dorian pentatonic? 

If anyone can set me straight...


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Doug Gifford said:


> So, to sum up my understanding… it's a useful set of stepping stones to get you through. You are, though, free to modify those steps as your ear and the idiom suggest and, on guitar, they are good bases to bend from or to. It's used melodically but may be used in conjunction with harmonies that include other notes. Or it may be an integral part of a melody that evolves into something more complex. Reasonable?


Those stones are composed of the same alphabet you use to play "all of music". There's nothing more to it. Pentatonic, hexatonic, 7-note scale, chromatic scale, triad, 7th chords, augmented chords, etc. these are all using the same alphabet to "spell" musical words; they are composed of the same materials, like a sentence composed of words, and words composed of an arrangement of characters. A sentence becomes more coherent with firm context, not simply the inclusion of more words. It becomes more articulate if you use the appropriate words. And it becomes more interesting if you can string together different meanings, create similes, analogies, metaphors etc. And the granddaddy of the whole thing is "feeling". Once you know what those concepts are, and are able to simultaneously feel them out, you are making music that is sophisticated: sophistication is in the feeling.
People are very good at remembering and memorizing information, but they can lose the plot all too frequently. If taken as a whole, good music has a good plot, it has a theme, and is not just a memorable riff or a solo.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Mutant_Guitar said:


> Those stones are composed of the same alphabet you use to play "all of music". There's nothing more to it. Pentatonic, hexatonic, 7-note scale, chromatic scale, triad, 7th chords, augmented chords, etc. these are all using the same alphabet to "spell" musical words; they are composed of the same materials, like a sentence composed of words, and words composed of an arrangement of characters. A sentence becomes more coherent with firm context, not simply the inclusion of more words. It becomes more articulate if you use the appropriate words. And it becomes more interesting if you can string together different meanings, create similes, analogies, metaphors etc. And the granddaddy of the whole thing is "feeling". Once you know what those concepts are, and are able to simultaneously feel them out, you are making music that is sophisticated: sophistication is in the feeling.
> People are very good at remembering and memorizing information, but they can lose the plot all too frequently. If taken as a whole, good music has a good plot, it has a theme, and is not just a memorable riff or a solo.


nicely put


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

CathodeRay said:


> I've been practicing "blending" modes and pentatonics, which opens up a really interesting pallette of moods.
> 
> I just started trying this the other day, and I'm not big on theory. I'm just looking for a mood to convey. It's quite useful.
> 
> ...


 Degrees>>>>>>
If it is tonic to C major = (2)(3)(5)(6)(1)(2/9) <<this is the pentatonic sound (it excludes the 4th and 7th degrees), D E G A C D ending on the D (9th or 2nd) gives it the effect of an upper voicing. You'd be right to relate it to a Dorian mode if coming from Cmajor. 
tonic to D minor or mixolydian = (1)(2)(4)(5)(7)(1/8) << without a 3rd degree it is ambivalent (F would lean toward Dminor, F# would lean toward Dmixolydian)
other ways of relating that scale would depend on what chords you are playing over.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

Imagination and technique. 

If you possess only one of these, musical theory will always be a stumbling block in one way or another. 

If you have both, you soon realize that all theory is a handy tool kit for getting what you imagine onto the instrument -- either spontaneously, or by thoughtful composition -- or by both. 

Otherwise, the instrument plays you instead of the other way around. The pentatonic is possibly the most commonly abused shortcut to a true lack of inspiration (with guitarists that I have observed, anyway).


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## Derek_T (10 mo ago)

What's "worth learning" at the guitar is often answered by the question: What do you want to play ?

If that's part of the vocabulary of the music you want to play then yes, if it's not then no.
Most likely it is, in western music at least, as you can use pentatonic in Jazz, Blues, Rock, Pop, R&B, Country...


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## tonewoody (Mar 29, 2017)

5 note scale fetish?
Pentatonic is for Fendersexuals and trans-fender individuals.


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)

The notes dont play the blues, the blues play the notes.


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)




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