You’re not getting everything out of the pentatonic scale! Let’s take every guitarist’s favorite scale and explore some amazing sounds—not only for soloing but also chords!

Since the pentatonic scale is easy to play and you already know it, these ideas will instantly fit into your playing. There is no reason to stay stuck just playing the same old boring licks all the time.

#1 The Perfect Fit for a Maj7 Chord

The scale I’m talking about is, of course, E minor pentatonic.

It’s the most guitar-friendly scale known to man, and everyone’s favorite scale—well, maybe except Allan Holdsworth.

You already know how to use E minor pentatonic over E minor and E major chords.

But let’s go beyond that and explore how this scale can unlock new sounds in your playing. Looking at pentatonic scales this way can give you fresh melodic ideas and as you will see later also chords! Check it out:

The notes in E minor pentatonic are:

E – G – A – B – D

These notes also appear in several scales:

That means Em pentatonic could potentially work over many different chords, but for now, let’s focus on C major, especially Cmaj7.

Even though Em pentatonic doesn’t have a C, it still nails the Cmaj7 sound because it contains:

These colorful extensions make it incredibly easy to sound great over a Cmaj7 chord.

You might be thinking:

“Those notes are already in the C major scale… what’s the big deal?”

But the thing is: music isn’t just about the notes—it’s about the sound! – It’s not about the notes, it is NEVER about the notes!

The pentatonic scale has a built-in melodic structure that shapes your phrases, making your lines sound different from typical major scale or arpeggio-based licks.

Check this out, here I am using Em pentatonic on Cmaj7 and I will show you some useful scale patterns in a bit.

Now compare that to this more traditional jazz line:

The second example uses: Chromatic enclosures, Arpeggios things that are not in the pentatonic scale

But the pentatonic line follows different patterns, creating a distinct sound that you won’t get thinking arpeggios.

Here’s one of the patterns I used in the pentatonic lick:

And here’s another great pattern, which I play using small sweeps:

These patterns lead to different melodic ideas compared to using arpeggios or traditional scales, and you can even mix them, here I start with an arpeggio and go into some pentatonic patterns:

Whenever you’re playing over a maj7 chord, you can use the minor pentatonic scale from the 3rd to get a fresh, modern sound. I try to teach that as often as possible, Lee Anderton liked it, but I am not sure he ever did anything with it, which is a pity it could be really powerful for him.

This concept is great for single-note lines, but you can also turn these pentatonic shapes into incredible chords! Before we get to that, let’s quickly explore which pentatonic scales actually work over a maj7 chord.

More Pentatonic Options

Before we move on, let’s quickly cover how to find pentatonic scales for a chord…Because it’s actually a fairly simple process if you start with 7-note scales.

Every major scale contains three minor pentatonic scales.

For C major, the notes are:

C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C

And the three minor pentatonics are: A minor pentatonic, D minor pentatonic, and E minor pentatonic

 

Now, if you look at a Cmaj7 chord…You’ll find it in two major scales:

C major → where it’s the I chord

G major → where it’s the IV chord

There is no maj7 chord in  melodic minor scale only a maj7(#5)…And harmonic minor doesn’t contain unaltered minor pentatonic scales.

From C major, we get: A minor pentatonic, D minor pentatonic, E minor pentatonic

From G major, we get:  E minor pentatonic, A minor pentatonic, B minor pentatonic

Now, D minor pentatonic is not that useful here…Because the F is unstable over Cmaj7.

That leaves us with:

A minor pentatonic, E minor pentatonic ,B minor pentatonic

A minor pentatonic is basically C major pentatonic…And that can work, but it doesn’t include the major 7th.

(At least, I miss it… Pat Metheny doesn’t seem to mind!)

This scale contains: A C D E G A

So we get the C major triad, plus a 6th and a 9th.

A more exotic choice is B minor pentatonic, which gives us:

B – D – E – F# – A

This is great if you want a Lydian sound…Because the F# adds a #11 over Cmaj7.

Here’s what that sounds like:

So far, we’ve only looked at single-note pentatonic ideas… but these same shapes are amazing chord voicings! That’s where things get really fun!

#2 Pentatonic Chords in Position

This sounds impressive…But it’s actually very easy to play because of the 2-note-per-string pentatonic scale positions.

Let’s move the Em pentatonic scale down to this position…So it’s closer to the chord:

This position is right next to this Cmaj7 voicing:

And now, you can play chord voicings like this:

These voicings are easy to play…Because they come straight out of the 2-note-per-string pentatonic scale.

I’m playing three notes at a time…And visually, it feels like this position has two sides…And I’m just moving between them.

That gives you these chords…And I’m not even naming them—they’re all just great sounds for Cmaj7.

Check this out:

When you hear these voicings with a C in the bass…You can hear how they all sound great together.

They create a Cmaj7(9,13) sound…Which is beautiful and full of color.

Now, you just need to get creative with how you play them.

Here’s a beautiful way to break up these three-note voicings:

Now, imagine using this rich flow at the end of a song…This is my favorite way to arpeggiate them:

But here’s the cool thing… These pentatonic chords sound beautiful in position… but what happens when you start moving them across the neck? That gives you a fresh perspective on chords—and even some incredible solo lines!

#3 Pentatonic Voice-leading

The chords are easy to play in one position…But there’s a lot more to explore if you move them along the neck.

This is very similar to how you’ve probably practiced diatonic shell voicings.

But in a major scale, each chord has a clear, defined name…That’s not really practical for these voicings.

And we don’t need that anyway—because we’re using them over a single chord! That’s what makes them so powerful.

If you take the positions as a starting point…And move through the 3-note voicings on the middle string set…You get these easy-to-play chords:

Check out how this instantly turns into a beautiful chord fill:

If you’re playing a tune like “You Stepped Out of a Dream”…

You can comp like this, and notice the trick to shift between chords at the end of the Dbmaj7:

I am first just stating the chord and then playing a simple melody with the pentatonic chords, and on the Dbmaj7 I bar the voicing with my 4th finger.

That was just the basic voicings…Let’s try an easy variation using this sus4 triad.

And try to spot where this shape gives you two other triads as well:

Now, I’m still not naming the chords here…Because when you move structures through the scale, you often get major and minor triad inversions.

But did you catch the Em and the Gmajor triads? Both Em and G major triads are found in this pentatonic scale.

But I don’t think of these as Dsus4 over Cmaj7…That’s just too complicated.

Instead, I’m just moving notes around inside the pentatonic scale, and I don’t need to overthink it while playing.

Here’s a great-sounding Cmaj7 chord run…Using these arpeggiated voicings:

But these shapes are also great for soloing…Because they naturally shift around a melody like this:

And here, I’m playing the pattern with a small sweep.

The picking is: Down – Up – Up – Down – Up – Up – Down – Up – Up. A picking pattern that  is also great for diatonic triads on a string set and other common material..

How To Think About Chords

Once you start thinking about chords like this—as simple variations of a pentatonic scale—it changes how you see the fretboard and makes it much easier to play freely. That’s actually how Joe Pass thought about jazz chords, and it’s game-changing for your comping and chord melody playing to simplify like that. Using that, you won’t get lost in remembering 1000s of grips, this approach is much more practical and helps you play music with the chords. Check it out!

Learn Jazz Make Music

The Biggest Misunderstanding About Jazz Chords And How To Quickly Fix It

 

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