98% of modern Western music is based on the Major Scale and uses derivitive forms of it (minor, Modes etc) to add colours and different flavours to the music.

One of the most common variations is the Pentatonic Scale.

This is a Scale mde up of 5 (penta) notes that comes in 3 main flavours:

• Major Pentatonic
• minor Pentatonic
• Pentatonic Blues

Like the Major and minors themselves, they are characterised by shapes and patterns that are the same wherever you play them; this makes it a simple case of learning the shapes once and knowing that wherever you move it to it will be the same Scale type even if the notes are different.

Let's take a look at them. We will be looking at all of them in the 3rd fret A String C position because it's easy, clean and kind of an industry teaching convention.

The Major Pentatonic is made up of:

• Root
• Major 2nd
• Major 3rd
• Perfect 5th
• Major 6th

In the Key of C that's: C-D-E-G-A, rounded out by the Octave.

A good way to remember how this sounds is to remember that this pattern is literally the guitar line to the classic hit "My Girl".

Let's take a look at...

The minor Pentatonic Scale.

Like all things deemed to be minor, it's made minor by the use of the flattened 3rd note. The minor Pentatonic is made up of:

• Root
• minor 3rd
• Perfect 4th
• Perfect 5th
• Flat 7th

In the Key of C that's: C-E♭-F-G-B♭, rounded out by the Octave.

A couple of good examples of this Scale in the wild (both in Bm by coincidence) are "Money" by Pink Floyd and "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath.

The final example of the most common forms is the Pentatonic Blues Scale; it comes in Major and minor forms.

The Major Pentatonic Blues Scale requires a little positional shift in order to play it. In the 3rd fret A string C position here you need to slide/move from the root up to the Major 2nd (D) and play on from there in a kind of 3 fret box shape.

The Major Pentatonic Blues Scale is made up of the following notes:

• Root
• Major 2nd
• minor 3rd (the "Blue Note"
• Major 3rd
• Perfect 5th
• Major 6th

In the Key of C that's: C-D-E♭-E♮-G-A, again, rounded out by the Octave.

Now, having established that the Pentatonic Scale has 5 notes (Pent = 5) you may have noticed that there's an extra note in there! That's the "Blue Note", it's a passing tone that gives the Scale it's Bluesy flavour. 

It's not technically a part of the Scale but it's inclusion gives the Scale it's character.

The other form of the Scale is the minor Pentatonic Blues Scale.

The minor Pentatonic Blues Scale doesn't require any positional shifts to play it; it's played in the same position as the minor Pentatonic itself.

Again, since it's minor flavoured, the 3rd note is flattened. Like the Major Pentatonic Blues Scale, the minor Pentatonic Blues Scale has the addition of a passing note: this time it's a Flattened 5th.

The Major Pentatonic Blues Scale is made up of the following notes:

• Root
• minor 3rd
• Perfect 4th
• Flattened 5th
• Perfect 5th
• Flattened 7th

In the Key of C that's: C-E♭-F-G♭-G♮-B♭

Again, this Scale is rounded out by the Octave.

I hope that this has helped to demystify these Scales for you. Like the Major and minor Scales, once you learn the shape then you can move it anywhere you want any you're playing the Scale.

These things become more useful to know when it comes to chord progressions and chord tones but when I've created a post about that I'll add a link here.

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