Improvisation Theory 1: Pentatonic Scale (Major)

The pentatonic scale is made up of five notes. As posted before, a key is made up of 7 notes, and these notes form the basic building blocks for the chords and melodies in the song. For example, the C major scale comprises of the notes:

C D E F G A B

If, however, we omit the 4th and 7th notes, we obtain the pentatonic scale:

C D E G A

The good thing about this scale is that it is one of the best places to start learning how to improvise and form guitar solos. This is because it uses only five notes, and these notes fit into most chords easily.

The tabs for the C major pentatonic scale are as follows:

--------------------------8-10s12--
---------------------8-10----------
---------------5-7s9---------------
-----------5-7---------------------
-----3-5s7-------------------------
-3-5-------------------------------

Here's an example of myself improvising a simple solo over History Maker. Note that this scale tends to sound rather 'Chinese'.



You may need to transpose the tabs to fit into another key. To do so, use the following sequence of notes:

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B

Start with the (big and bold) C note. Suppose you want to play the D major pentatonic scale. The D note is two steps away from the C note, thus you take the C pentatonic scale, and play it two frets higher. If you need to play the B major pentatonic scale, you either use the C pentatonic pattern a fret lower, or 11 frets higher. More on transposing later.