Many people are interested in musical art. Music is a great way to increase a person’s spirit or comfort him in sorrow. A music school is a wonderful institution that allows you to learn the basics, as well as many of the nuances of how to master one instrument or another. Many beginners in musical craft go there exactly at the beginning of their journey. Those people who are starting to learn how to play the guitar often ask themselves what pentatonic guitar is. From this article we learn the answer to this question. In addition, we will become aware of what pentatonic steps are.
Basic principles
In the event that you would in no way want to master the pentatonic scale, but nevertheless you would like to be able to come up with an amazing solo on an acoustic or electric guitar, sooner or later you would still have to come across this term. Why is this happening?
Studying what pentatonic guitar is is inevitable because pentatonic is a scale in which there are 5 sounds. The peculiarity of this scale is that it basically does not have half tones, as well as sounds that can form newts.
The popularity of pentatonic
It would be difficult to say which of the most famous guitarists (and besides bassists, keyboardists, as well as many other members of the musical fraternity) could not use pentatonics. For example, blues pentatonic is an aspect without which improvisation is impossible. And, in principle, this is a rather difficult thing to imagine - a game without improvisation.
Theoretical introduction
Since pentatonic is a five-step mode, unlike any diatonic scales, it does not consist of 7, but only of 5 sounds. This is the power of this guitar playing technique. The music school of Ancient China in the seventh century elevated this technique to the status of a philosophical postulate. It was believed that each note of this scale denoted a peculiar, definite mystical effect on individuals and society as a whole.
Types of Pentatonic
There are two types of pentatonic. At the same time, minor pentatonic is as popular as major.
The pentatonic minor principles are almost exactly like the major ones. The difference is only in a slightly different tonality. This is due to the parallelism of the given tone. Thus, we get pentatonic by removing the fourth and seventh steps from the major scale. At the same time, we remove the second and sixth steps from the minor. That is why this rule of parallelism is great for pentatonic.
So, the most important rule is: a parallel minor can be built on the sixth step of the minor, while retaining all the signs on the key, if any. In addition, there is an option to retreat from the major tonic one small third down, in which case a minor tonic will come out. Simply put, this will happen in two frets down the string.
Let's imagine that we want to improvise a melody in the A-minor key. It is necessary to find the note A on any of the strings, check the minor principle of pentatonic and arrange the remaining notes directly considering the main tonic. The width of the pentatonic consists of four frets. Four fingers are directly responsible for four frets, each of your fingers is responsible for a note in its own fret. The term that stands for is positional play.
The basic advice given to novice musicians is that they need to play all the pentatonics, from the lowest to the highest note, and then vice versa. When you learn how to directly play all of these figures in the very initial version, then you can start and vary the game. It must be remembered that the easiest way to play scales is to play these elements with eighth notes. In this case, it refers to the duration. Do not forget that two notes are played for each beat. For example, consider the pentatonic scale in A-minor.
Workout Exercise
Let's take la on the third string. This point will be the tonic, the second fret. Now take your third finger with your index finger and get directly the second position. Now start playing with the third fret of the sixth string itself. This place has the lowest sound. Then follow the instructions on the table.
In this example, the bottom line, the tab, is the guitar neck itself. At the same time, its first string is at the top, while the sixth is at the bottom. On the right is the tool body, but on the left are the pegs. The fret number is depicted on the strings. At the same time, he is depicted, given all the notes located above.
There is another interesting way. This method is called triol. In it, every fourth share is directly divided into three identical parts. Every three notes should sound, which is important, evenly during one beat. A classic example in this case is the waltz. Let's recall the standard pace of the waltz, as we saw it, for example, in the films “one-two-three-one-two-three”.
Consider Major Pentatonic
Let's talk in more detail about what major pentatonic scale is. This technique can be obtained by removing the fourth and seventh steps from the most natural C major scale. Accordingly, the formula of this technique: 3 (do) - 2 (pe) - 3 (mi) - 5 (salt) - 6 (la).
This is what you should pay attention to. The fact is that C major and A minor pentatonic scale actually consist of the same sounds. However, due to the fact that they all have a very different interval structure, they are different. In this case, the very rule of paired keys applies to them. These are the keys of major minor, which have the same number of alteration characters in their key. For example - in C major - in A minor, in G major - in E minor (or in F sharp). Thus, it turns out that the pentatonic boxes on the guitar, if we consider them with respect to this property, are universal. In other words, C major and A minor pentatonic structure have the same fingering. However, at the same time, the location of the directly tonal center, as well as other steps, they differ from each other.
Halftone Pentatonic
In Japanese folk music, as well as, in principle, Asian, the midtone pentatonic technique is popular. Five-stage series are widely known there, in addition to the main seven-stage sound series.
Halftone pentatonic scale is a common type of pentatonic scale among the countries of the East. An example of such a pentatonic scale is as follows: efgg # -a #. Intervals in this case are half-tones (i.e., small seconds). In this case, the intervals are ef and gg #.
Other examples of pentatonic
By the way, there is also mixed pentatonic and temperamental. In the mixed one, the properties of a half-tone and classical, half-tone pentatonic scale are combined, while the tempered one is the Indonesian type of slendro scale. It has neither tones nor midtones.
Pentatonic guitarists
One of the most prominent guitarists of modern time R. Fripp argued that usually it takes five to six years of practice to master one of the scales. However, many people think that the more gamma they know, the better for them. In order to describe this phenomenon, you can use the well-known and extremely good folk expression "pick up the tops." Such people, instead of expanding and deepening their knowledge and understanding of what is already known, jump from one straight to another without mastering anything.
Since pentatonic is the easiest, and in addition, a popular way to master frets, it is found in all styles of music. There are a huge number of reasons for this. The main thing, most likely, is the most neutral sound of this technique. Miles Davis used pentatonics especially heavily in his improvisations. Including even where it might seem unacceptable.
Isolation from natural frets
However, in addition to the enormous advantages of pentatonic, it also has one big drawback. The fact is that its sound palls quite quickly and it becomes quite difficult to come up with something unusual within the framework of one fret. The main standard way to diversify the sound of a pentatonic scale is to add a 5b level and a blues style. In addition, many use tonic pentatonics for each of their new chords. In the blues tradition, it is customary to use one pentatonic for almost all chords of the sequence.
Nevertheless, there is, among other things, another wonderful way that helps to expand the expressiveness and possibilities of pentatonic. Using this method, you can create extremely unusual sounds, while using only 5 notes. This method is called "the isolation of pentatonic from natural modes."
To begin with, let's take the three most common frets: Dorian, Lydian, Mixolidian. Now remember the connection of the chord with the corresponding fret. Following this, it is necessary to find the pentatonic inside each fret. Due to the fact that there are only five possible types of arrangement of sounds in the pentatonics itself, our goal is to find options for these calls in our chosen mode.
Using the simplest principle, now from each note we begin to try all possible options. Moreover, if it is impossible to build a large second from the note itself, then in this case we will only have one option (namely, to start with a small third). If we generalize the result obtained, we get a conclusion according to which each pentatonic scale can also have its own pentatonic scale. An analogy can be given to harmonizing gamma with chords. As a result, we get seven pentatonics in order to beat one chord. We can use any of them to open up a variety of new opportunities for playing chords.
This principle is extremely good for improvisation. You can, without hesitation, create a modal pentatonic sound itself. Suppose you can remember that every time you play a major it is possible to use that pentatonic scale, which is located a half tone below the most basic tone. You can play the B minor pentatonic scale in C major.
Well, now you have learned that pentatonic is a great way to learn to play the guitar and even delve into its jungle.