Get New Sounds Out Of Pentatonic Scales With One Small Change

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-10

[00:00:03][music] [music] >> If we take a G major pentatonic scale >> [music] >> and we look at the notes in their relation to the major scale that would be we would have the 1 2 3 5 and 6.

[00:00:23]And so when we're playing over different chord progressions in the key of G playing a pentatonic scale from the G note is a great option and it's kind of the easiest option to get you into soloing and thinking about melodies, but sometimes when you're playing over a progression that has [music] some seventh chords in it like a G major seven maybe you're just playing over that one chord or you're playing over kind [music] of a harmonic progression using seventh chords such as like G major seven C major seven E minor [music] seven D seven something like that.

[00:01:01]You don't always want to just play pentatonics and so what I want to show you is a way to adjust the pentatonic so you're still playing a pentatonic scale but we can change it a little bit to come up with some new sounds.

[00:01:13]So if I take the pentatonic scale [music] I did before and I just move the E note which is the sixth of the major scale >> [music] >> in the case of the pentatonic scale it'd be the fifth note up from the bottom and I move that up by a whole step to the seventh or the major seventh of G and I play my same pentatonic scale just replacing each E with an F sharp I get a pretty [music] different sound.

[00:01:44]Still very similar four out of the five notes are the same but instead of that sixth I get the major seventh and now uh my pattern sounds a little more relevant to the major seventh chord of G. So if I put on a backing track here and just play through that, >> [music] [music] [music] >> it really doesn't sound just like a pentatonic scale anymore because we're adding that major 7 and that changes, to me, the the overall sound in context of of that scale. So, the nice thing about this is we've only changed one note in each octave. So, each of the five pentatonic shapes that we already know can be very easily changed in order to have this major 7 instead of the 6. So, I'll put the diagrams on the screen and then I'll show you how I would practice through these five shapes.

[00:03:08]And then after that, I want to show you how this applies to minor keys as well because I think it's even more interesting when we apply it over the relative minor. So, I'm going to show you first the five shapes and then we'll go into the minor application of this.

[00:03:24]I'm going to start with shape one of the major >> [music] >> and I'm going to play in a rhythmic cycle.

[00:03:32]Meaning, I'm just going to create a loop out of this scale so that I'm practicing it in a musical way. And when I'm doing it with the backing track, it it's easier to get my rhythmic cycles going. So, um I'm not just playing willy-nilly across the different chords. I'm have a repeating pattern that I can come back to.

[00:03:50]So, here we go.

[00:04:02]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> If I do it twice as fast, >> [music] [music] >> and to me, when I do it at that faster pace, you can really hear how it might sound if I was improvising with it in a song.

[00:05:54]So, the other aspect of this is doing the relative minor. So, with G major, >> [music] >> the relative minor is E minor.

[00:06:08]And if we use the same exact scale, switching out the E for an F sharp, what we get is a really interesting [music] sound where we don't have a root note in the scale we're playing.

[00:06:21]>> [music] >> So, if I were to just analyze the notes in this adjusted pentatonic scale against an E E note, [music] I would have the second or the ninth, the flat three, four, five, and the flat seven.

[00:06:42]Then I would jump up to the ninth again with the second, flat three, [music] four, five, flat seven, nine.

[00:06:50]>> [music] >> So, this is kind of a cool way to do a [singing] rootless pentatonic scale over minor chord.

[00:06:59]And I'll do the same exercise I just did over the um G major, I'll do that over E minor so you can hear this. And then I'll do a little improvisation over over both so you can kind of hear the difference between regular pentatonic and this adjusted pentatonic.

[00:07:20]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Okay, now if I just improvise with it over the G major pattern.

[00:09:04]>> [music] [music] [music] >> If you like this idea that I was talking about today, you can get a free PDF of the fretboard diagrams for this pentatonic scale at practicemakesbettermusic.com and you'll you can find the link to the specific post in the description of this video on YouTube. One other thing I wanted to mention before I end here is that the uh book that I got this idea from is called jazz guitar soloing concepts and it's uh subtitle a pentatonic modal approach to improvisation by Dr. Ronald S. Lemos or Limes.

[00:10:05]I found this book because I was looking for books on improvisation to help me better teach improvisation and so this idea of adjusting pentatonic scales to fit different chords more uh cleanly what is from this book and it's a cool book.

[00:10:24]It's got pentatonic scales for every kind of uh seventh chord that you could think of.

[00:10:32]I like this major 7 1 um the best since that's why I shared it. I thought it was the easiest to apply and a really great sounding one but there's lots of other good ideas in the book so if that peaks your interest you might want to check out the book. If you like the lessons that I am releasing check out my website practicemakesbettermusic.com.

[00:10:53]I have a new free mini course that will show you how to build an effective practice routine that will guarantee you progress if you stick to it. And that mini course should be coming out very soon. So it'll walk you through the steps of how to build your own practice routine, how to make sure you're focusing on all the right categories and making good progress in each of them on a consistent basis. So you can sign up at the top of my home page uh there's a link where you can sign up for the waiting list to get notified when that mini course comes out and that should be coming out very soon. One last thing I'd like to mention is that I am currently accepting new students via Zoom. So, I create a personalized practice routine for each of my students including uh unique visuals, uh PDFs, and handouts for each person based on exactly where they're at and we develop a good plan and to help you grow and to reach your goals.

[00:11:57]And we also have you know, our lessons serve as a weekly check-in where we can see how everything's going and adjust the plan as we go to make sure that you're making the most progress possible. So, if that's something that interests you please check out the private lessons tab on my website practicemakesbettermusic.com for more information and when you're there, you can click on the link to schedule a free session with me.

[00:12:27]Um so, we can just meet and talk about what might be a good approach for you to make the most progress and to get the most out of a private lesson experience.

[00:12:35]So, thank you for watching and I hope to see you in the next video.