The most used blues and rock scales are the Minor Pentatonic Scale and the Major Pentatonic Scale. The Minor Pentatonic Scale contains the root, flattened third, fourth, fifth and flattened seventh (1, b3, 4,5,b7). The major pentatonic scale has five notes – the root note, the second note, the third, fifth and sixth (1, 2, 3, 5, 6 ). In the key of C the minor pentatonic scale is C Eb F G Bb and the major pentatonic scale is C D E G A.
The Major Pentatonic Scale is commonly more commonly used to solo in blues and rock solos. To start learning to master soloing using the Minor Pentatonic Scale. We are going to learn to how to play solos over major, minor and dominant chords.
Let’s take a common blues chord progression using the root, fourth and fifth notes of the scale (I, IV, V). If we are playing a song in the key of C major, the chords are C, F and G major. The minor Pentatonic scales resolves or feels like your playing the right notes, the major pentatonic does not resolve or feel as comfortable until your playing over the V chord G major.