A Rectangle-and-Stack Approach to the Dominant Pentatonic Scale

I was inspired by a recent Robert Baker YouTube video demonstrating a pair of cool Nuno licks derived from a relatively obscure scale called the Dominant Pentatonic. This lesson explores the Dominant Pentatonic scale, and shows how you can easily add it to your repertoire by making a simple adjustment to the pentatonic rectangle and stack you already know.

A rectangle-and-stack approach to the dominant pentatonic scale

In his recent ”Nuno Bettencourt’s Secret Soloing Trick” video, Robert Baker breaks down two licks from Nuno Bettencourt’s solos that use a somewhat uncommon scale. In these licks, Nuno changes one note of the minor pentatonic scale to make it fit better in a dominant or Mixolydian context. By simply shifting the flat third up a half step, he creates what we could call a dominant pentatonic scale.

For a tutorial on the two licks, check out Robert’s video. And for an understanding of how to apply this new scale all over the fretboard, read on.

Dominant pentatonic rectangle and stack

Rather than treat this as an entirely new scale, here’s a way to play it by slightly modifying the minor pentatonic rectangle and stack you already know.

As a reminder, the minor pentatonic scale has five notes: a root, a flat third, a fourth, a fifth, and a flat seventh (R-♭3-4-5-♭7). On an all-4ths fretboard, it forms two finger-friendly shapes I call the rectangle and stack.

If we raise the minor third a half step to make a major third, the scale becomes R-3-4-5-♭7, and the rectangle and stack are distorted slightly. We call it a dominant pentatonic scale because four of the five notes come from a dominant seventh chord (R-3-5-♭7).

Even with these changes, rectangles and stacks still maintain the same relative positions vertically. A stack is "nut"-justified with the rectangle below it and "bridge"-justified with the rectangle above it.

When we apply this to standard tuning with its major third interval between the G and B strings, our tried-and-true pentatonic forms are distorted, so it would take some practice to be able to play them fluently everywhere. I don’t recommend explicitly trying to learn these shapes, but for reference, here’s what you get:

One of the best ways to use this dominant pentatonic sound across multiple octaves in practice is to use the diagonal pathways created by connecting stacks. There are two paths to learn.

For the two Nuno licks demonstrated in the video, Baker transposes them to use the “Form 1” E Dominant Pentatonic shape at the 12th fret.

What else can we do with this?

It may not seem worthwhile to learn a whole new scale just to play a couple of licks from 90s hard rock tracks, but the dominant pentatonic scale is great for the blues, especially on acoustic guitar, where it’s more challenging to bend notes.

As I’ve said in some of my other lessons, when playing the minor pentatonic scale over a major chord, giving the minor third a slight bend is a common way to avoid clashing with the major third in the chord. On acoustic guitar (and on piano, for that matter), it’s also common to use the minor third as a grace note to the major third. Playing them quickly in succession like that has a bluesy flavor.

To visualize this, we can create a combined major/minor scale that includes both the b3 and the major 3.

Finally, since the dominant pentatonic scale shares four of its five notes with a dominant seventh chord, this scale will sound good over any 7th chord.