Hello everyone,
By listening to the song 'Heart at Midnight' by Cory Henry, I discovered that a lot of the phrases he was playing over the Emaj9 chord were articulated around the Eb minor pentatonic scale. This outlines some beautiful intervals from the Lydian scale (respectively 7,9,3,#11,13).
I've made a video in which I am trying to apply this concept to the guitar:
https://youtu.be/9u_B-6BKUn8I try to explain how it works from 4:25. Let me know what you think and if you have found other ways to use the minor pentatonic scale.
Keyboard players seem to be really good at that but I don't see it too much on the guitar. I remember seeing a video on Youtube in which Scott Henderson explains a similar concept.
Comments
Some other cool uses for good old Uncle Minor Pentatonic:
Up a tone from a Min chord (F#m pent over Em) for a Dorian sound.
Up a 4th from a Min chord (F#m pent over C#m) for Aeolian.
Up a minor 3 from a Dom/Alt chord (F#m pent over D#7) for an Altered sound.
And generally knowing what pentatonics to use off various degrees of a chord is incredibly powerful. So for those Heart at Midnight chords, there are a few cool options for playing that change:
Emaj/C#m to Ebmaj/Cm pentatonic
Bmaj/G#m to Bbmaj/Gm pentatonic
This is great as you only need to shift up or down a semi tone for the appropriate chord. But of course we can mix up any of the other options as we wish.
I think that's a really good point about keys players by the way. I think they (and horn players) have a much more definite approach to line creation and most importantly phrasing. I often wonder if the nature of the instrument helps with that. I think us guitar players tend to 'fluff' our way through it, with the exception of the likes of Scott Henderson et al
in a 251 in C, on the D minor, play A minor penta
on the G7, play A# minor penta
on the C maj 7, play B minor penta. That gives you the lydian notes you’re describing in your vid.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
It might be because keyboard players generally have a better grasp on harmony since they REALLY have to learn to play in all 12 keys. Not like guitarists who can just shift the same chord and scale positions.
I generally don't think in pentatonic scales, a fault from the way I learned scales etc. But if you extended that idea to playing Eb Phrygian (which includes all the minor pentatonic notes) it would give you more notes to hit home on, particularly the E note.
But I am not one to try and teach this stuff
A major pentatonic built on the 5th of a maj7 chord.
So for Emaj7 that would be a Bmaj pentatonic which gives the 2(9), 3, 5, 6(13), 7. I suppose you could also think of it as G# minor pentatonic.
So for the Emaj7 example, the pentatonic notes are B, C#, D#, F#, G#. The neat thing is that the C# is commonly bent up a tone in that pentatonic pattern, which lands nicely on the maj7.
For me, beginning to learn the piano over the past year has really highlighted the importance of knowing the interval/s you are playing in relation to the underlying chord. The way the instrument is layed out really lends itself to thinking in intervals, in a way that pattern/shape based playing on the guitar doesn’t.
I started the guitar, beginning with the bass, playing out of pattern based shapes without really having any understanding of the intervals I was playing. Just playing whatever sounded good. It’s easy and fun to play out of the pentatonic shapes without thinking too much about what you’re doing. I always liked the sound of switching between minor and major thirds, without actually knowing that’s what I was doing.
To anyone learning the guitar now, I’d really stress the importance of knowing your intervals. That in combination with just playing around with what sounds good and not overthinking what you’re doing! By learning intervals I don’t just mean by position on the fretboard; hear them, play them, sing them. That way you’ll get to know say the sound of a mode like Lydian and appreciate the interval that makes that scale different to the regular Ionian mode. I’d also highly recommend playing the piano to any guitar player.