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Barbara, I think you’re confusing yourself by trying to lump all scales into a pentatonic shape. The pentatonic scales are one of many.
The pentatonic scales are determined by the note and where in the scale you’re playing that note determines major or minor for instance, a C major pentatonic will start on the C note, whereas the C minor pentatonic will start on the A note.
The major pentatonic scale contains the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth notes of the major scale, while the minor pentatonic scale contains the first, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh notes of the natural minor scale.
Starting point
The major and minor pentatonic scales contain the same notes, but they start from different points.Relative scales
The major and minor pentatonic scales are complimentary to each other, similar to how C Major and A Minor are relative scales.The Pentatonic scales all have the same shape.
But we do not learn the Pentatonic scales at TAC in every week’s lesson. Tony often will do a scale horizontally or vertically, but they are not to be confused with the pentatonic shape.
There are a lot of different types of scales that can be played on a guitar outside of the pentatonic scales, including:
Major scales
There are 12 major scales to learn, including C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, and C#.Minor scales
There are three types of minor scales: natural, harmonic, and melodic. The most common is the natural minor scale.Other scales
Other scales include Lydian mode, Dorian mode, chromatic, whole tone, and blues scales.Music modes
The names of the music modes are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian.The five major scale shapes form the basis for most other scales in western music.