Major Pentatonic

Major Pentatonic


The pentatonic scales (pente, Greek = five) are historically considered ancient, consist of five notes, normally do not contain any half note steps and are often used in jazz, blues, rock, pop and country music.
Because of not having any half note steps the pentatonic scales appear to have no root. It produces a sound with a suspended characteristic.

Ladies & Gentlemen, And here is the pentatonic C major scale:

 

W = Whole Step, H = Half Step
By the way, if you only play the black keys on a piano, you are playing pentatonic music!

Application

The major pentatonic scale is the same as the Dom7 pentatonic scale, for the diminished 7th is not part of the pentatonic scale. For that reason the pentatonic scale is not listed on dom7 color circle.
The major pentatonic scale can also be played over a minor chord that has the root 3 half notes lower than the root of the major pentatonic scale (compare parallel major/minor scales, they have the same key signatures).

 

Chords

More pentatonic scales (not included in the ScaleTwister)

Gagaku (2nd mode of the Bb major pentatonic scale)

In-Sen-Scale

The second mode fits the Fmaj7#11 chord

The fourth mode fits the Bm7b5 chord
The fifth mode fits the Dm6 chord
Okinawa
Kumoi
Japanese
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