Double Bass Pentatonic scale

[Slipper]

Hello everyone, I have a question on the pentatonic scale, and have not found an answer in the forum.

I have noted the patterns of the pentatonic scale as follow:
Major: R, 2, 3, 5, 6, R
Minor: R, b3, 4, 5, b7, R


The pentatonic Major look a bit like the Ionian mode (all the major scale notes, except 4th and the 7th). And the minor pentatonic scale look like Aeolian mode (all the notes from minor scale except 2nd, et la 6th).
And I don't understand the logic of it. What is the relation between major and minor pentatonic scales?
And why is there 6 notes in the scale, but the name penta- suggest 5 notes?

Thanks for the help!

 

[James Collins]

C major scale
C D E F G A B C

C Major Pentatonic Scale
C D E G A C

A Minor Scale (Relative minor to C major)
A B C D E F G A

A Minor Pentatonic Scale
A C D E G A

The notes are the same. Minor Scales start on the 6th of the Major scale. There are 5 notes per octave.

 

[SteveCS]

You've counted 6 notes because you have included the tonic twice. Only count it once.

The relationship you describe is the same as that between major and minor keys. For a major key, it's relative minor is based on the 6th degree (submediant), i.e. the same as the relationship Ionian to Aeolian. For any minor key, it's relative major is based on the 3rd degree (mediant), i.e. the same as the relationship Aeolian to Ionian. So, as you observe, the major and minor pentatonics are just modes of each other.

These are the most common pentatonic scales, but any 5-note scale can be called pentatonic.

 

[Slipper]

Thank you for your answers James Collins and SteveCS!

Thank you for writing the notes James. It explains everything in a very concise way.
And the sentence "There are 5 notes per octave" explain what I was missing.

I must admit I don't fully understand your answer SteveCS. I will come back to my scales and study it more carefully.
"These are the most common pentatonic scales, but any 5-note scale can be called pentatonic". Once again, this sidenote is very precious. Thanks!

 

[jj.833]

I must admit I don't fully understand your answer SteveCS

Play C major: C D E F G A B
Then play it starting on A: A B C D E F G
When you play the same scale starting from different note, these are called modes. There are seven different modes for any seven note scale, all have different names and all are used.

Play C major pentatonic: C D E G A
Then play A minor pentatonic: A C D E G -- see? It's the same, only you started on A.

If you see a sheet in C major (no # or b in key signature), and a sheet in A minor* (no # or b in key signature), you can see that both songs use the same scale C D E F G A B, only starting on C and A respectively. The character of the songs is very different, but the scale is very similar. That might be taken as the basis to call the A minor a relative minor to C major.

* the first chord should be Ami, there's a typo in this sheet

 

[Jason Kruska]

Just to spice It up usually in books when learning scales they give you C Major and A minor. But what you Need to learn practicaly is C Major and C minor.
For sometimes you are going to use one or the other (and in a blues solo you might even try to work in the c minor pentatonic over a C Major blues).

 

[SteveCS]

When you play the same scale starting from different note, these are called modes.

It is true that the books certainly direct a good proportion of our practice of them in that direction. But I think the main thrust is more to do with how the music identifies a given note as 'home'.
In tonal music, home is the tonic - in the key of C that means C - and it is usually identified and modified by harmonic means such as chord sequences, cadences etc. (also collectively known as functional harmony.). The fact that melodies in tonal music often end on the tonic is not really important because the end is usually supported by a strong harmonic cadence leading to the tonic chord. There is a great deal of tonal music that has no real 'tune' beyond loosely-stated themes and motifs.
In modal music, the home note - the final* - is almost exclusively identified through melodic means. Ending on the final is, IME, far more important than starting on it, and the range of the melodies (the ambitus) often extends well beyond the octave, both above and below. When practicing modal improvisation or writing modal lines I try to create phrases and lines that end on or (more tricky) outline a journey towards the final but with no fear of upper or lower limits.

--------------
*The 'Final' (or Finalis) is analogous with the Tonic. I prefer to use the term final when talking modal as the word Tonic implies a tonal context. But in modern usage, Tonic has been applied to modes so much that it amounts to almost the same thing. Tonic is far more commonly used - it's just personal preference. YMMV

 

[SteveCS]

QUOTE="Jason Kruska, post: 25194260, member: 380160"]Just to spice It up usually in books when learning scales they give you C Major and A minor. But what you Need to learn practicaly is C Major and C minor.
For sometimes you are going to use one or the other (and in a blues solo you might even try to work in the c minor pentatonic over a C Major blues).[/QUOTE]

I would second this, not least because C minor is relative minor to Eb Major. Both are amongst the most common keys for tunes arranged for horns/brass, so being able to navigate them is critical, IME.

 

[Silevesq]

I know that these are the typical "major and minor" pentatonic chord.

But just to go somewhere else a little, some book says that a pentatonic scale is created by removing the dissonant note or/and some say to remove the 4 and 7 degrees. You can see it how you want, but this can also be applied to different scale and or approach.

And just to get you thinking more. Some will also say that the real minor pentatonic scale is R 2 b3 5 6.

Food for thought...
It all depends on how you apply what you know...

 

[Papageno]

There are plenty of pentatonic scales. Here are a few further common ones:
Dominant pentatonic scale: 1 2 3 5 b7
Suspended pentatonic scale: 1 2 4 5 b7

 

[james condino]

Just to spice It up usually in books when learning scales they give you C Major and A minor. But what you Need to learn practicaly is C Major and C minor.
For sometimes you are going to use one or the other (and in a blues solo you might even try to work in the c minor pentatonic over a C Major blues).

I'd disagree.

I spent decades having people try to teach me all of the scales and modes as individual separate scale "position boxes", to no avail.

Later, in a brief 12 minute session, I had one specific teacher blast a hole in all of those other lessons when he mapped out the entire fingerboard as complimentary combinations of those boxes, starting with the C major to A minor relationship. In a very short time afterwards, the entire fingerboard seemed to melt together into a cohesive unit, rather than a bunch of confused & isolated lone soldiers. Every since then, across multiple instruments, I tend to solo and improvise across the entire neck rather than hanging out in one position.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

My personal definition:
Any five tones in an octave are a pentatonic scale as long as there are no two or more consecutive halftone steps (except around root and perfect fifth) and the octave space is filled more or less equally (unless you only use the five notes without octave copies). That typically means no larger interval than a major third between scale tones.

Have a look at Asian pentatonics.

 

[fu22ba55]

I had one specific teacher blast a hole in all of those other lessons when he mapped out the entire fingerboard as complimentary combinations of those boxes

OP, this diagram might help you understand the "common pentatonic shapes"

Just one scale, major or minor, depending upon where you start, and what notes you stress:

 

[TroyK]

I've struggled a bit too with "what's the point of a pentatonic scale when it is the same as a diatonic scale that I already know, with some notes removed?"

But, playing those patterns is musical. I went through a phase where I didn't want to use them because I wanted to be more advanced than that. I'll learned melodic and harmonic minor for fox's sake, why would I play those 5 note scales that I played in my high school garage band days, when all of the same notes are in a more advanced scale that I know? Then I started struggling to sound remotely cohesive on solos and when I got around to transcribing realized how much they are used by excellent players, they just don't use them exclusively.

Then there's blues scale which is kind of both pentatonic scales + some notes. And bebop scales which feel indecisive, like "I have scales that have b7s and scales with major7s...why not a scale with both?"

I've FAR from mastered anything, but where I am now is that those scales are under my fingers and in my brain, but as a jazz player, all they *mostly* do for me is put ideas in my head, as I get them into ears and Copp some of other people's phrases with them, it just gives me places to go when I'm playing. I want my ear, not my brain to take me there, but when I'm stuck or I think the band isn't listening and hearing each other, I play something safe, like a pentatonic motif until it feels like both I and the music can handle something else.

The other thing that works freakishly well when I need to reclaim something musical? Rest. Space. Groove.

Then, maybe a liner run or triplet arpeggios through one of those interesting scales that only we jazz musicians know.

That said, I'm at my mom's house this week with only her piano and was transcribing a rock song that had both minor and major 7ths in the melody over a minor chord, but JD McPherson has the best rock and roll band working today, pound for pound, in my opinion.

 

[brianrost]

And I don't understand the logic of it.

Are you asking why those specific 5 notes were chosen? Because the missing notes (the F and B in C major) sound dissonant against the C major triad.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

There is only one pentatonic scale that only includes wholetone sand minor thirds. Two of its modes are what are typically named major and minor pentatonic. These are also the only ones which have a third and a fifth interval from the root in it.
They are indeed the most consonant pentatonics, but just one of many.

Fir those wanting some instructions how to apply pentatonic scales in jazz improvisation you may want to get Adelhard Roidinger’s “Jazz improvisation and pentatonic” from Advance Music. Unfortunately it is in German only, even though the front cover looks like it is in English too, but includes only two pages of text (which should have been translated, even if some of it might be a bit “exotic”), the rest are music examples and the describing text should be easy to decipher like German interval names etc.

Adelhard Roidinger was a well known Austrian bass player who passed away about a decade ago.
I once attended a workshop with him about that concept, but it seemed that it went a bit esoteric and not much related to the booklet.

Anyway that was my first contact with harmonic major, that I found in earlier publications later. I think I was strongly influenced in my scale and chord research by him and Chris Beier, a German jazz piano player/teacher with a different concept.

 

[Papageno]

There is only one pentatonic scale that only includes wholetone sand minor thirds.

No, there are actually 2 of them (and no others):

- one is the familiar major pentatonic:
1 2 3 5 6

- the other one is the dominant pentatonic:
1 2 3 5 b7. (in the later one, the 2 minor 3rds are consecutive).

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Sorry, sloppy terminology use by me. Your two scales are modes from one.

I might not have chosen a good terminology, better would have been scale structure (as an octave ring that could be turned and one note choose as the root) than scale.
It is easier to compare scale structure rings than scales (= modes of the scale structure rings).

 

[Papageno]

Sorry, sloppy terminology use by me. Your two scales are modes from one.

No they are not. Read my post more carefully.

The major pentatonic is: 1 2 3 5 6 (8), so the succession of intervals are M2, M2, m3, M2, m3.

The dominant pentatonic is 1 2 3 5 b7 (8), so the succession of intervals is M2, M2, m3, m3, M2.

No matter how you rotate them, you cannot make those 2 scales coincide with a mode of each other (just like the major scale and the melodic minor scale are not a mode of each other).

 

[DoubleMIDI]

No they are not. Read my post more carefully.

The major pentatonic is: 1 2 3 5 6 (8), so the succession of intervals are M2, M2, m3, M2, m3.

The dominant pentatonic is 1 2 3 5 b7 (8), so the succession of intervals is M2, M2, m3, m3, M2.

No matter how you rotate them, you cannot make those 2 scales coincide with a mode of each other.

You are right.
Sloppy reading and not thinking carefully. Sorry (once again…).

Two times the minor third without any wholetone in between has more of a chord than a scale. But indeed I would still qualify that one as a scale, only a bit less equally distributed than the 2-2-3-2-3 type. But still a bit better distributed than the ones containing a 4 (major third) interval in it.