You might be getting Pentatonic scales wrong, and it is a really great and powerful Jazz sound even when you are using a very basic version of it. In this video, I am going to talk about how to come up with great pentatonic scale jazz licks and go over 7 ways to use pentatonic scales over chords I will start really simple and go pretty far out.
The Altered scale is a difficult scale to get into your playing. At the same time, altered dominants are also a cornerstone sound in Jazz, and you need to learn how to solo over them.
This video is presenting 15 different things you can use on an altered dominant so you will have a huge vocabulary of triads, arpeggios, and pentatonics that you can work with in your solos.
The point of the scale is to sound dissonant and ask for resolution, so you need to keep that in mind when you practice using it.
Pentatonic Scales, Triads, and Arpeggios
It is important to have a big vocabulary of material that you can use when you are improvising. Having a set of things you can use as a flexible part of your playing is going to give you a lot more freedom when you are playing.
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The Pentatonic Scale can be great both as a way to get started playing jazz and also just some extra material that you can use as another sound if you are already playing jazz. But when you want to use The Pentatonic Scale in jazz you don’t always want to use blues licks. You want to play melodies that sound like jazz.
In this video, I am going to go over some exercises and show you how you can use them to get another sound out of pentatonic scales and create some modal and some II V I jazz lines. Pentatonic scales are a huge part of the vocabulary of people like Pat Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel and John Scofield.
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A big part of what makes Jazz difficult in the beginning is that you have to play solos that really follow the chords and when you listen to people playing you hear different sounds flying by. In this video, I am going to show you how you can pentatonic scale jazz licks. I will go over some jazz licks, and in that way help you get started playing solos where you really follow the harmony.
If you are already familiar with playing over changes then using pentatonic scales is something that can add another sound to your solos and in that way increase your vocabulary so you may find that useful as well.
II V I jazz licks with Pentatonic Scales
The examples in this lesson are all on a II V I in C major, as shown here below.
For each chord I am going to use a different minor pentatonic scale.
Dm7 – Dm Pentatonic
G7alt – Bbm Pentatonic
Cmaj7 – Em Pentatonic
I am going to be using one position of each scale and keep it simple to use . The scales are shown here below first as sheet music and tabs, and then Scale diagrams:
Dm Pentatonic:
Bbm Pentatonic:
Em Pentatonic:
II V I lick #1
The first example is using a fairly simple lick using mostly scale runs within the pentatonic scales.
Notice how I transition from chord to chord using a stepwise motion. D to Db going from Dm7 to G7 and Eb to E when moving from G7 to C.
Never Ending Scale Exercise
A great way to practice moving smoothly from one scale to the next is to play an exercise like this. Here I am moving up Dm pentatonic for 1 bar and then continuing to the closest note in Bbm pentatonic when the chord changes to G7. On the G7alt the scale turns back at the top note and goes to the B in Em pentatonic when the chord changes to Cmaj7.
II V I lick #2
Pentatonic scale positions are two notes per string, and that makes them great candidates for using legato. This example demonstrates that.
It is also an example of how you can make pentatonic licks that skips around and does not move only in a stepwise manner.
To practice playing some basic melodic skips you can do this exercise which is essential playing a pentatonic scale in diatonic 3rds.
II V I lick #3
Using rhythmical patterns and adding more movement to the lick. I am again using some legato to play the lick.
The pattern on the G7 is moving around a 3 note pattern in the scale. This breaks up the rhythm in a nice way, and shifting rhythms like these are an important part of jazz phrasing.
You can practice the pattern through the pentatonic scale to get more used to playing this. It also really builds your general flexibility with the scales.
Taking Pentatonics to Jazz and getting started Soloing
A great jazz song to check out using pentatonic scales on is Blue Bossa. If you want to dig into a lesson on Blue Bossa then you can check out this lesson:
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Finding good ideas for using The altered scale can be difficult and often we end up just running the scale and not really making any interesting melodies.
In this video I will go over 3 pentatonic scales you can use when improvising over an altered dominant which is a great way to get some strong and interesting melodic ideas. Pentatonic scales are a great and easy to use resource on the guitar and as you will see you can do a lot with them.
The Sound of Pentatonic Scale in Modern Jazz
I really like to use pentatonic scales in my playing to get some more modern sounding ideas, which is also where the pentatonic scale is mostly used, but it is overall a very effective tool.
Connecting to the basic G Altered Scale
G7 altered is the same as Ab melodic minor:
Ab Bb B Db Eb F G Ab
We have one straight minor pentatonic scale:
Bbm – Bb Db Eb F Ab Bb
That’s what I am using here in this next example.
In example 2 I am first playing the scale as a 2nd position minor pentatonic. I also use another way which is to play it in a 3-1 pattern. This has 3 notes on one string , 1 note on the next etc. That is written in the 2nd 2 bars of example 2 here below.
Next lick another type of pentatonic scale that works really well for melodic minor sounds and especially the Altered scale. I will also go over some useful exercises to combine legato and picking for playing fast in the pentatonic scale.
The altered lick using Bbm pentatonic
Here below is the lick using the Bbm pentatonic scale. The first part is just runing up the basic scale position. in the 2nd bar I use 2 different 3 note per string patterns and then resolve to the G on Cmaj7. The line is closed with a small fragment from an Em pentatonic.
Abm6 Pentatonic
Abm6 pentatonic is a very good choice for a pentatonic scale in the altered scale. In fact it is great fro most chords you come across in melodic minor.
Abm6 pentatonic: Ab B Db Eb F Ab
You can play that like this:
Connecting it to the tritone substitute
You can also look at it the scale as a Db7(9): Db F Ab B Eb which is how I am using it here.
Ab B Db Eb F re-ordered is Db F Ab B Eb
which is a Db7(9) arpeggio.
The example here below starts with a Db7 arpeggio and ending on the 9th in the 2nd bar two octaves higher. From here it resolves to the 9th on Cmaj7 and ends with a short lick on the Cmaj7.
Mixing legato and picking
This lick relies on mixing legato and picking. I find that those two are really cornerstones in my playing and it makes sense to have exercises where you mix them so that you can solve problems for your right hand with legato.
Here below I included an example of an exercise like this using the Abm6 pentatonic.
Let’s have a look at a more exotic but also effective pentatonic scale for altered dominants, some economy picking and how an E7sus4 chord works great on a Cmaj7.
The Eb major b6 pentatonic
This is the Eb major (b6) pentatonic scale: Eb F G Bb B Eb
It is a great scale to spell out the sound of melodic minor because it has the augmented triad from B included.
Constructing the scale
Since we are using the scale over a G7 altered it makes sense to connect it to a Cm pentatonic scale. You can construct the scale by taking a Cm pentatonic replace the C with a B. That makes it easier to find fingerings:
Major b6 pentatonic scale example with economy picking
The example using this scale is making use of an economy picking pattern in the first bar. I am using the economy picking to play the 3 note patterns in bar one branching into bar 2. From there it starts with a small scale pattern resolving to the 3rd(E) of Cmaj7.
The arpeggio on the Cmaj7 is an E7sus4 which works great for that sound. It is also a part of the Em pentatonic scale I am using on that chrord.
Using pentatonic scales in Jazz
The way I work with pentatonics is mostly to get a different sound than the standard blues phrasing, they work great for some open sounds and different melodies. How do you work with pentatonics? Leave a comment and be sure to also check out the ideas that are discussed in the comments because often there is a lot of interesting information being shared.
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Pentatonic Scales and Modern Jazz go hand in hand just like guitar and pentatonic scale do. In this video I am going to try to bring the two together using a 12 bar blues and demonstrating 9 ways you can apply pentatonic scales to this chord progression. The ideas are not only going to be on which scale to use on which chord, but more about finding a series of pentatonic scales that you can use to create other movements on top of the jazz blues.
Pentatonic Scale use on a Blues (without sounding Bluesy..)
The blues is a great progression to explore reharmonizations and super-imposed pentatonic scales. There are a lot of very standard chord changes that can be approached in many interesting ways. Most of the examples are using several scales to demonstrate other ways to move throught the changes, but there are also a few surprising scale choices for a chord here and there.
The sound of the Pentatonic scale is often associated with certain genres like rock, blues, country and western, but it certainly has it’s place within modern jazz and fusion as well. Most of us come from another genre to jazz and have certain ways of using the Pentatonic scale that is a bit harder to get to work in jazz. This lesson will show you some ways to come up with some more fresh sounding Pentatonic ideas.
All the examples are using E minor pentatonic, because I was in that kind of a mood that day.
Reshaping the Pentatonic shapes
The first example is demonstrating how you can use an alternative fingering for a standard CAGED or two note per string scale fingering.
The new way of playing the scale is using an alternating pattern of 3 and 1 notes per string. The Advantage is that this makes it easier to play for your right hand and also makes it easy to play some of the 4ths intervals within the scale.
You can see in the begining of the phrase in example 1 how I use this.
The fingering is shown here below in example 2:
3 notes per string and a II V I in D major
The 2nd lick is a II V I in D major and the Em pentatonic part (on the II chord) is making use of a 3 notes per string way of playing the scale.
The advantages to playing 3 notes per string with the pentatonic scale are that you get to explore a huge chunk of the neck and that it automatically helps you connect the different two notes per string positions while ascending the neck.
The lick is shown here below in example 3:
The line is using only the top part of the 3nps pattern since the entire pattern is a bit long.
The 3 note per string verison of the E minor pentatonic is shown here below:
Extending the 2 note per string pattern upwards and downwards
This example is making use of the 3 note per string pattern to make it easier to play faster and more intervallic runs is . Instead of thinking of the scale as a row of notes I am thinking of the two notes per string position with an upwards and downwards extension of one note for each string.
This gives me two 3 notes per string patterns, but they both have doubled notes since the last note on a string is the first note of the next string.
This can be practical for some types of lines, but the doubled notes can also make it hard to make sense of the melodies you make with these patterns.
The lick is shown here below in example 5:
The “extended” versions of the scales are shown here below:
Making use of these ideas
The ideas I show here are mostly just short glimpses of what is possible with these principles and of course you should sit down and explore them further to see what you can use them for. Probably the first step is that the lick I played or the scale will in some way inspire you to come up with something?
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The Pentatonic scale is one of the first things we learn. And since it is something we are very familiar with and we can use this to change it a bit and use it for other chord sounds like Altered Dominants or other melodic minor sounds. In this lesson I am going to show you a simple way to make a great pentatonic scale for altered chords and demonstrate how to learn and how to use it.
Creating the Pentatonic scale
I came up with this scale by playing a C minor pentatonic scale and then changing the C to a B. This is shown in example 1, first the C minor and then the B Lydian Augmented pentatonic scale.
As you can see in this example we can easily use that we already know 5 positions of pentatonic scales and that it is easy to “alter” the root so that we make them into or new pentatonic scale.
The Melodic Minor Connection
It is important to also notice that this scale, or 5 note set of notes. Is also a subset of the Ab melodic minor scale:
Melodic minor: Ab Bb B Db Eb F G Ab Ab Bb
Altered pentatonic: B Eb F G Bb B
This tells us that it is a part of the Ab melodic minor/ G Altered scale and we can also see that it is a good fit for the G7 with an F and a B in there.
Learning The Altered Dom7th Pentatonic Scale
Since the scale is layed out in 2 notes per string patterns across the neck, just like our normal pentatonic scales we can use some of the same exercises to get used to playing the scale
Here are a few excerpts:
The pentatonic scale in groups of 3 notes
The scale in groups of 4 notes:
Finding the chords in the scale
It is important to also have some of the structures under control in the scale. The place you probably want to start is to create some diatonic chords. In Example 5 I have stacked diatonic “3rds” which as you may know yields a lot of quartal harmony.
This exercise is shown here below:
The chords that we get from this are:
G7alt Quartal Voicing
Eb augmented triad
F Quartal Voicing
G7 Shell voicing
Eb Maj triad (2nd inv)
All of them are quite useful as upper-structures on a G7 altered.
Using the scale as a melody
To demonstrate the way this pentatonic scale works in the context of a II V I I have made three examples.
The first example starts with a pattern of an Fmaj7 (the arpeggio from the 3rd of Dm7). The arepggio is played in a 1 5 3 7 pattern. The line continues with a descending scale run.
On the G7alt the line is simply an ascending run up the scale that is then finally resolved to the 9th(D).
The fact that the pentatonic scale is a bit unusual in the construction makes it possible to get away with using it as a melody in the most basic form as a sort of enriched arpeggio.
Putting some diatonic chords to use
The 2nd example starts with a Dm7 descending arpeggio. From here it continues with a short scale run.
On the G7alt the melody is first the G7(#9) quartal voicing and then a Eb augmented triad in inversion.
The line resolves to the 3rd(E) of Cmaj7.
The upper-structure triad
This example makes use of the Eb major triad as an upper structure on the G7alt.
The opening on the Dm7 line is constructed first from an F major triad followed by an Am pentatonic scale fragment. On the G7alt the line is an embellishment of an Eb root position triad followed by a small scale run that resolves to the 3rd of Cmaj7.
Working with these altered or modified pentatonic scales
When you work on using this pentatonic scale it is useful to try to tap into some of all the things you already have in your system with normal pentatonics. There is a lot of tips and ideas already explored on guitar in several styles using pentatonic scales after all.
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In this video I will go over 3 Music Theory Ideas that I use all the time in my own playing!
Why learn Music Theory?
Learning music theory is of course a part of learning guitar. Jazz Guitar especially is often considered theory heavy, but in fact you can really easily start using some of your theory to make music. If you apply the things you learn you will remember them better and get more out of them so that is certainly something you should consider in your Jazz Guitar Practice.
In this video I will go over 3 theoretical ideas and then show you how you can directly turn them into music and hopefully it will give you some more ideas that you can add to your jazz guitar improvisation or compositions.
The Key and the Chords
All the examples I will use in this lesson are in the key of C major and I will demonstrate each idea on both a Dm7 and a Cmaj7 to give you some material to work with,
1. The Arpeggio from the 3rd of the Chord
So the first thing we can look at is how to come up with some more arpeggios to use over any chord that we have to solo over. In most cases the arpeggio from the 3rd will work as a great sound on top of the chord.
The Dm7 chord and it’s 3rd
In Example 1 I’ve written out a Dm7 and an Fmaj7 arpeggio. As you may know F is the 3rd of a Dm chord.
If you compare the Dm7 and the Fmaj7 arpeggio you get this:
Dm7
D
F
A
C
Fmaj7
F
A
C
E
And as you can see the two arpeggios have the same notes except we are playing an E (which is the 9th ) instead of the root.
A lick using the Fmaj7 arpeggio over a Dm7 chord might be something like this:
The Cmaj7 and the Em7 arpeggio
In a similar way we have an Em7 on the 3rd of Cmaj7
Again we can look at how these compare:
Cmaj7
C
E
G
B
Em7
E
G
B
D
An example of a guitar lick with this idea is shown below in example 4.
Notice how I use both Cmaj7 and Em7 arpeggios in the line. It is important to combine new ideas with the vocabulary you already have!
2. If m7 Then Minor Pentatonic
The second idea is that whenever we have a m7 chord then we can use a minor pentatonic scale to solo over it.
The Dm and the Dm pentatonic
The m7 arepggio is almost the same as a minor pentatonic scale as you can see in the table here below:
Dm7
D
F
A
C
Dm Pentatonic
D
F
G
A
C
This is probably also easy to see from this comparison:
Since the difference is only the G, which is the 11th of D and sounds great over the Dm chord then we can use this idea to make pretty modern jazz licks like example 6:
The Cmaj7 and which pentatonic?
Cmaj7 is of course not a m7 chord, but we do have a m7 on the 3rd of the chord: Em7.
This gives us the pentatonic scale shown below:
The E minor pentatonic scale is 3 5 6 7 9 if you relate the E G A B D to a C root. All great sounds over a Cmaj7.
A guitar lick using this idea could be something like example 8:
3. Adding Chromatic Leading notes
The third idea is to add chromatic leading notes to the arpeggio. Since the chromatic notes are resolved to a chord tone immediately this is something that we can easily apply to a melody.
The Dm7 and some leading notes
In example 9 I have written out a Dm7 arpeggio in one octave and then in the next bar the same arpeggio but now with a chromatic leading note before each note.
I would not recommend that you use all of the leading notes all the time. It is easier to use one or two to get a more smooth lick.
A guitar lick with this concept is shown in example 10. Notice how I don’t add that many leading notes, and one of them is also diatonic so you almost miss it!
The Cmaj7 can be lead on as well
If we try to do the same with the Cmaj7 then we get the arpeggio followed by the arpeggio with leading notes as shown in example 11:
Applying this to a line is shown in example 12:
In the example above you can see how I am combining all of the three ideas: Leading notes, Arpeggio from the 3rd and Pentatonic scales. As I mentioned above it is important to combine as many things in your playing as possible, and especially to combine new ideas with the things you already know so that you can use it in your jazz improvisations.
Turn Your Theory in to Practice!
As you can tell there are great ways to directly turn theory knowledge into lines and by understanding the basics of chords and scales you can already do so! I hope this lesson gives you some ideas to dig a bit further in exploring the possibilities from the theory you know!
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Most guitarists learn the Pentatonic Scale as one of the first things they ever learn on the guitar, and most of the time it is not a scale that we think too much about when we use it. It’s just the pentatonic scale and it’s something that is in our ears and fingers for years. And that is even if we are already for the rest playing music with extended chords, altered dominants etc.
In this lesson I am going to take apart the pentatonic scale and look at some of the things that you can find in there since that might yield some new ways of using it by combining what you know of the pentatonic scale and what you know about improvising with chords and arpeggios.
The Pentatonic Scale
The pentatonic scale that I will spend time on in this lesson is this D minor pentatonic scale:
If you try to remember all the exercises you have done in a pentatonic scale you will probably find that they are all sequences and groups of notes (3 and 4 are very common) more than they are praciticing specific structures that could be seen as a chord.
Diatonic chords in the Pentatonic scale
In a major scale we create chords by stacking diatonic 3rds. A diatonic third is basically a just a note followed by the note 2 steps higher in the scale. If we build chords in the scale like this we get this scale exercise:
To get a better overview of what these arpeggios are you can play them as chords (the pentatonic scale is very forgiving with it’s 2 note per string fingerings) and that will give us the following set of chords that are “diatonic triads” in the pentatonic scale.
As you can see the “triads” that we build are almost never consisiting of actuall 3rd intervals and especially the 4th is much more present in the chords which is why we get stacks of 4ths (the sus chord inversions).
The chords we have are then Dm, F, Gsus4, Csus4, Dsus4 which you could consider the diatonic triads in the scale.
Even if it is possible to play this in a position like I did in example 3 it is very useful both for comping and for using them as arpeggios to practice these on a string set like shown in example 4:
It is worth while to keep in mind that if you can use the pentatonic scale to play a solo over a chord then probably the chords in example 4 are good for comping over that chord. Maybe try out example 4 over a Bb bass note to get a Bbmaj7 sound.
Open voiced diatonic chords
Now that we have 3 different types of chords: major, minor and sus4. We can start getting more out of the chords by playing them as open voiced triads. The easiest place to start with making open voiced triads is to take example 4 and then lower the 2nd note an octave. If you do that you will get the following chords:
With open voiced triads you get a lot out of inverting them, because they contain a lot of quite large intervals. To just cover that I’ve written out a set of inversions for each type of the open voiced triads:
Practicing these open voiced triad inversions is a great thing to put to use with pentatonic scales and they are also great for right hand accuracy and technique since they contian a lot of irregular string skips.
If you want to check out open voiced triads in more detail you can also have a look at this lesson: Open Triads in Solos
Shell voicings in the pentatonic scale
One way to think of the D minor pentatonic scale is to think of it as a Dm7 arpeggio with an added G. Since the Dm7 chord is to be found in the scale we can of course also use a Dm7 shell voicing and try to play that through the scale.
I have written this out in example 9. The most logical starting point seemed to be the standard Dm7 shell voicing in the 5th fret. From There I take it through all 5 degrees of the scale to get some other voicings. Some of the voicings have nice seconds in them and can be put to good use in any situation where Dm pentatonic is an option.
If you want to know more about using shell voicings as arpeggios you can also check out my lesson on this subject: Shell Voicings as Arpeggios
A few examples
All three examples are basic II V I progressions in the key of C, so Dm7, G7alt and Cmaj7. They should illustrate how you can use some of the arpeggios and structures cover in the first part of this article.
The first example is using the open voiced triads, and more or less just playing the first two arpeggios from example 5, which are a Dm and then an inversion of a Csus4 (or an open voiced Fsus2 if you will). From there the line descends down the scale and continues to a G7 alt line that is based around an AbmMaj7(9) arpeggio that then is resolved via the Ab to the 5th(G) of C.
Using the “diatonic triads” from example 2 in a similar basic way is also a very useful. In the 2nd line I start of with an A and then go into the F major 2nd inversion and G sus 4 triads from example 2. On the G7alt the line is using the Bb min pentatonic scale. First a stack of 4ths from Bb, which would be the same as the Dsus4 triad in example 2. Fromt here it descends down the scale and resolves to the 7th of Cmaj7
The third example is mixing up the open voiced triads and stacks of 4ths. First an open voiced Csus4 triad followed by a Gsus4 triad. From there it continues with a basic line on G7alt that is build around an AbmMaj7 arpeggio that via an chromatic approach resolves to the 5th(G) of Cmaj7
Some of the chord names that I end up using in this lesson like the Gsus4 and the Dsus4 are maybe not the best names to describe the sound that you have at your disposal with these arpeggios, but it is still very worth while to use this approach to get some new arpeggios and melodic structures out of the pentatonic scale. By looking at it in the same way we would the major or melodic minor scale.
I hope that you can use the material that I went over here to get some new ideas and make some good surprising lines using pentatonic scales.
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