Just musing really...
I guess a lot of us, when we first started out wanting to play the lead bits, began noodling with minor pentatonics. It’s mostly what we were told and taught and, to be honest, in a blues/rock setting serves pretty well most of the time.
...but nowadays I find that I’m using minor pentatonics less and less, and major pentatonics (or combinations of both) more and more. To my ears, in most (major key) situations, the major pentatonic scale just sounds so much more musical. Plus it still works very well indeed in a (major key) blues setting - for example lots of pieces by Freddie King.
So, was just wondering why it’s the minor pentatonics that there seems to be so much emphasis on learning? I guess because it will work well in a lot of settings - most blues/rock regardless of whether the piece is in a major or minor key. Also, I guess once you’ve learnt the boxes you’ve already got all the ‘shapes’ for major pentatonics - you’ve just to do that three-fret shift in your thinking.
Anyway, pentatonic musings over.
I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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My memory is a bit hazy regarding the specifics, but I recall reading an interview with Frank Zappa where he said something about guitarists often relying on simple pentatonics, and I didn't know what he meant at the time.
I eventually worked out (probably mainly by copying solos by Paul Kossoff) that there was a 5 note pattern that guitarists commonly used that was a subset of the major scale, that missed out the 4th and major 7th. Then I found (by copying solos) that by starting the pattern on a different note (in effect moving the same pattern three 3 frets up) that it worked against minor keys and sounded bluesy against blues songs in a major key.
So I learned things the other way around and it feels more natural to me to think in terms of major pentatonic shapes that are translated (moved along the guitar neck), modified and have notes added to them to create other scales. Now the 5 CAGED major pentatonic shapes form the basis for my fretboard visualisation method. Although, as I'm think in terms of shapes, I suppose is doesn't matter whether they're labelled as major or minor, it's just the root note that's in a different location.
When I play a major key blues I tend not to think of the major and minor pentatonics as separate entities, unless I want a specific effect. I see them as superimposed on top of each other, which could be thought of as a Mixolydian scale with an added minor 3rd or a Dorian with an added major 3rd. But I see/hear them as basic pentatonics with extra notes added.
I think because a lot of rock and roll and then classic rock stuff was then born out of the blues, a lot of rock players end up developing the same bad habit of being stuck in 'Box 1' of the minor pentatonic that rubbish blues players like myself developed!