Guitar Tactics
Scales

Expanding Your Playing with Pentatonic Scales

Instead of E minor or E major pentatonic over E, try **B minor pentatonic**

Key Takeaways

  • Instead of E minor or E major pentatonic over E, try B minor pentatonic
  • Building minor pentatonic from the 5th creates a more neutral sound
  • You can make it sound rooted on E while using B minor pentatonic notes
  • This is a modal concept that opens up new melodic possibilities

Transcription

I'm going to show you a technique for using pentatonic scales in new and interesting ways. It's probably different than how you've used pentatonic scales in the past.

Start by droning a big E. The obvious choices are E major pentatonic or E minor pentatonic, depending on the tonality.

But I'm going to give you a different scale that sounds more neutral: B minor pentatonic. Building a minor pentatonic off the fifth.

So instead of E minor, it's B minor pentatonic. Here's a big drony E, and here's the B minor scale.

I can also make that sound more rooted on E. It's kind of a modal concept: take the B minor pentatonic and make it sound like it's in E, even though I'm taking the notes from B minor.

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