The “cheat sheet” from the Jamming 101 skill course

[Loraine]

@BarbaraM One is the minor pentatonic and the other major pentatonic. The major starts with your pinky on the root note, and you play your index, middle and pinky towards the headstock. while the minor starts with the index on the root note and you’re playing towards the body of the guitar.

[BarbaraM]

OK, minor and major pentatonics are just labels for me at this point. So the red dots refer to the positions of the index or pinky fingers within their respective scales? And the direction of travel, as it were, for each is indicated by the start position/finger? There was never any explanation for this, even in the comments for the lesson.

Thanks for your explanation Loraine, it just looked like two copies of the same scale shape with 3 random red dots. But the major pentatonic scale jumps up and down, almost like a stair step?? How does it go down towards the body? Maybe I still don’t understand.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  BarbaraM.

[Loraine]

Both scales are the same exact shape with the same fingerings. The difference is where you start the scale off the root note. Once your hands are positioned correctly, you will play the scale using the same shape.

The major scale is rooted on your pinky., so place your pinky on the root note, then place your ring, middle and pinky on the preceding frets. The scale will still be played starting with your index finger.

The minor scale is rooted on your index finger, so place your index finger on the root note. The place your middle ring and pinky on the following frets. The scale will start with your index finger.

Not to confuse you more, but It’s important to know if you’re playing in a major or minor key. When playing wothothers or by yourself, if writing your own songs, etc. it won’t sound good to play a minor scale or chords to a major backing track or to a song written in a major scale. When you’re practicing and doing improv, you will want to use a backing track in the same key. For instance, if you will be practicing a major scale in C, then you will want a backing track in C major also. You can search in YouTube for whatever key (root note) you’ll be playing, and and type in backing track “C major” or whatever key. The same with a minor backing track. Once you know you’ll be playing a minor scale, search for backing track, C or whatever key &minor.

[BarbaraM]

OK, light bulb time! I did not know that the index-or-pinky-on-root-note didn’t mean to start the scale there; scales always go up (or down from the high note) in a smooth fashion. So, if I’m doing a scale in C major pentatonic, I place the pinky on a C on the low E string, but start the scale with my index finger three frets toward the headstock…? and in a C minor pentatonic, I place the index finger on that same C note and continue up the same pattern…?

Wait, no light bulb. I just tried it and it’s still wrong; it turned into an A minor scale. I don’t know what the major scale turned into! Maybe the word ‘pentatonic’ is confusing me into thinking it’s something different than plain old major and minor scales? I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, but this is messing me up!

I did understand your next explanation of matching the tonalities of the backing track with the scale, that’s just common sense.

[Loraine]

The notes are the same for the C Pentatonic and the Am Pentatonic. The difference is the root note. The C major’s root note is C, whereas the Am’s root note is A. Write it down on paper and see.