Everything Is Pentatonic: How to Play (Just About) Everything with Just the Pentatonic Scale

In the written lesson available above, I showed how to unify the Pentatonic Gear Shifts idea with Pat Martino's "make everything minor" technique. The basic idea is that you can use the pentatonic scale to improvise over just about any chord if you choose a pentatonic scale that contains some of the chord tones (ideally including the chord's root).

This video shows what many of those pentatonic scale choices sound like by demonstrating them over chord drones. I highly encourage you to experiment with this idea on your own. Create a drone with a "freeze" pedal, a synth pad, or a backing track, and experiment with different pentatonic scales to see what sounds good!

Everything is pentatonic: how to play (just about) everything with just the pentatonic scale

There are a lot of benefits to using pentatonic scales as the main engine for your improvisations. First, they are familiar. Your fingers probably have lots of pentatonic licks embedded in their muscle memory. Triggering a “chunk” of multiple notes as a unit frees up your working memory to focus on something other than exactly which note to play next. Second, pentatonic scales have wider intervals than 7-note scales, which makes melodies sound more melodic and vocal and less scalar. Sometimes, less truly is more. Third, pentatonic scales are unusually flexible, as I hope to show with this lesson.

In the Pentatonic Gear Shifts video, I introduced the idea of shifting pentatonic scale patterns up or down a string to follow the chords in a diatonic chord progression, and in the first two Pentatonic Gear Shift Overdrive lessons, I showed how to shift patterns horizontally to make certain transitions easier to visualize and how to access the full 7-note diatonic scale while you shift, which led to a simplified way to solo over the ubiquitous ii-V-I sequence.

But we can squeeze even more goodness out of pentatonic scales by deploying them in other creative ways. In this lesson, I’ll show you how to access new sounds and simplify complex chord changes by creatively shifting pentatonic scale positions.

1. Quick review: Pentatonic basics

There are two pentatonic scales that are most commonly used in improvisation: the minor pentatonic (1, ♭3, 4, 5, ♭7) and the major pentatonic (1, 2, 3, 5, 6). These are really the same scale. You get the major pentatonic by thinking of the ♭3 of the minor pentatonic scale as the root, and you get the minor pentatonic by starting on the 6th of the major pentatonic. Both scales are built from the exact same sequence of intervals. The only difference is which note is treated as the root.

When we lay out the pentatonic sequence of intervals on a fretboard with the strings tuned in 4ths (i.e., each successive string is tuned to be five frets higher than the previous string) and play two notes per string, we get a geometric pattern that repeats every five strings.

In standard tuning on a guitar, the interval between the G and B strings is a major 3rd (a four-fret distance), which has the effect of warping any geometric shape that lies across it. Whenever any geometric pattern crosses the invisible line between the G and B strings, the part that lies on the higher strings is shifted one fret toward the bridge. Thus, if we apply the idealized two-note-per-string pentatonic pattern to standard tuning, we get five different six-string pentatonic fingering patterns that are sometimes called Forms 1-5.

I like to break the pentatonic pattern down into two sub-patterns: the rectangle and the stack.

These smaller patterns are easier to visualize and move around the fretboard, and they make the shifts we’ll talk about here easier to perform. For this lesson, the main thing you need to know is that if we treat these notes as the root, we are playing a minor pentatonic scale:

And if we treat these notes as the root, we are playing a major pentatonic scale:

2. Shifting pentatonics to create modal sounds

As we saw in the Pentatonic Gear Shifts lessons, we can shift pentatonic patterns up or down a string or up or down two frets to play scales related by the cycle of 4ths/5ths. Let’s take a look at what’s happening when we do this.

Shifting up one string

When we shift the pentatonic scale up a 4th (up one string), we can think of the result in two different ways. In the original Pentatonic Gear Shifts video, I described it as changing from one scale to another, moving the whole scale up a 4th, and changing the key one step counterclockwise on the cycle of 5ths.

But if we stay in the same key (i.e., keep thinking of the same note as the root), the effect of the shift is equivalent to moving one note in the scale by one semitone. In the minor pentatonic scale, the perfect 5th is shifted up one semitone to become a ♭6. In the major pentatonic scale, the major 3rd is shifted up one semitone to become a perfect 4th.

Since the ♭6 is the characteristic note of the natural minor scale, and the perfect 4th is characteristic of the major scale, this shift can give an Aeolian flavor to the minor pentatonic and an Ionian flavor to the major pentatonic. We’ll come back to this idea in a moment.

Shifting down one string

If, instead, we shift down a string, still keeping the same note as the root, we replace a different note. In the minor pentatonic, we replace the ♭3 with a major 2 (or 9). In the major pentatonic, we replace the root with a major 7th.

Neither of these modified notes is quite as characteristic as the ones we get when we shift up, but the major 7th signifies that the mode is definitely not Mixolydian.

Shifting up two frets

Shifting a shape up two frets achieves the same effect as shifting a shape down two strings. This isn’t obvious, but it’s because shifting up two strings and two frets moves every note by exactly one octave.

In the minor pentatonic scale, this replaces the ♭3 with a 2 and replaces the ♭7 with a 6. If we keep the same root, we have added the two notes that define the Dorian mode.

In the major pentatonic scale, shifting up two frets replaces the root with the 7 and replaces the 5th with the #4. If we keep the same root, these two notes define the Lydian mode.

Shifting down two frets

If, instead, we shift down two frets, we achieve the same effect as shifting up two strings. In the minor pentatonic scale, this replaces the root with the ♭2 and the 5 with a ♭6. With the same root as the reference, these notes are characteristic of the Phrygian mode.

In the major pentatonic scale, shifting down two frets replaces the 6 with a ♭7 and the 3 with a 4. Keeping the same root, these notes are characteristic of the Mixolydian mode.

3. Strategic application: short departures

One of the best ways to use the shifts I’ve just described in real solos is to use them as brief departures.

If you are playing a major pentatonic scale, you can briefly shift:

• up two frets to create a Lydian sound,
• down two frets to create a Mixolydian sound,
• up one string to create an ambiguous sound that fits either Ionian or Lydian, or
• down one string to create an ambiguous Ionian/Mixolydian sound.

If you are playing a minor pentatonic scale, you can briefly shift:

• up two frets to create a Dorian sound,
• down two frets to create a Phrygian sound,
• up one string to create an ambiguous Aeolian/Dorian sound, or
• down one string to create an ambiguous Aeolian/Phrygian sound.

As I suggested above, I find that these shifts are best used as short departures within a phrase. One of the challenges with using them on their own is that the positions of chord tone targets are not where you expect them to be, so you have to be more careful about which notes you emphasize. By starting in the “normal” pentatonic scale, briefly shifting to the “alternate” scale, and then shifting back, you can get the flavor of the desired mode but then easily stick the landing with a chord tone.

4. Advice from Jon Finn

I want to make it clear that I didn’t invent these ideas. One of my sources of inspiration was Jon Finn’s excellent book, Advanced Modern Rock Guitar Improvisation (affiliate link). In it, he suggests a few specific ways to get more mileage out of pentatonic scales:

1. He suggests getting a different sound over a maj7 chord by playing the major pentatonic built on the 5th. According to Finn, Eric Johnson used that sound in “Cliffs of Dover.” This substitution is exactly the same as shifting the pentatonic down one string as described above, which replaces the root with the major 7th in the scale.
2. As I described above, Finn shows that you can create a Lydian sound over a major or maj7 chord by playing the major pentatonic up two frets. This adds the #4 and natural 7 from the Lydian mode (replacing the root and 5th).
3. Finn suggests getting a different sound over a m7 by playing the minor pentatonic built on the 5th of the chord. As with the maj7 substitution up above, this is exactly the same as shifting down one string. It replaces the ♭3 with the 9th, and it works if the underlying mode is Dorian or Aeolian (i.e., not if the m7 is a iii7).
4. Finally, he suggests getting a different sound over a m7 by playing the minor pentatonic two frets up. This replaces the ♭3 and ♭7 with the 9th and 6th. As described above, this gives you a Dorian sound.

5. Advanced technique: Pat Martino’s pentatonic translations

In his book Linear Expressions (affiliate link), Pat Martino provides some ideas that can take this pentatonic shifting idea even further. His approach is to find a “scale substitution” for every chord in a progression by translating each chord to a related minor scale. He uses the natural minor scale (Aeolian mode) and harmonic and melodic minor scales, but we can apply the same logic to pentatonic scales, especially if we allow ourselves to modify the minor pentatonic scale to create a “minor(major)” pentatonic scale whenever he references harmonic or melodic minor.

In his examples, Martino shows how jazz language (i.e., licks and phrases) created from the natural, harmonic, or melodic minor scale can be used to create lines that sound great over any chord progression.

Here are the core substitutions he recommends:

• Over a maj6 or maj7 chord, Martino suggests playing the relative minor. If we translate this to the minor pentatonic scale, this is exactly the same thing as playing the major pentatonic scale that matches the root of the chord. The only difference is in your head, i.e., which note of the scale pattern you’re thinking of as being the root. For reference, a maj6 chord is a maj7 chord with an added 13th (6th).
• Over a maj9 chord, Martino suggests using the minor scale built from the third of the original chord. This is exactly the same thing as playing the major pentatonic built on the 5th of the original chord, which we can also think of as shifting the major pentatonic down one string. This shift replaces the major 3rd with a perfect 4th, yielding an ambiguous Ionian/Mixolydian sound with no 7th.
• Over a m7♭5 chord, Martino suggests playing the minor scale built from the minor third of the original chord. This is different from any of the shifts we’ve discussed, and using the natural minor scale in this context seems like an odd choice because the more obvious choice would be Dorian. In any case, if you are just using the minor pentatonic, that distinction dœsn’t matter because you’re leaving out the 6th altogether.
• Over a dominant (7 or 9) chord, Martino suggests playing the minor scale built from the fifth of the original chord. This is equivalent to shifting down a string from the root and switching to minor, which is not the same thing as the downward shift we talked about earlier. It’s actually the equivalent of shifting the major pentatonic scale down two frets, which is exactly what you’d want to do to create a Mixolydian sound.
• Over an augmented triad, Martino suggests going up a major 6th from the root and playing either melodic or harmonic minor. I think of this as going down three frets from the root and playing the minor(major) pentatonic scale. I’m not going to go into that alteration of the pentatonic scale in depth here, but you can find a treatment of it in this lesson on the harmonic and melodic minor scales.

The main benefits of using Martino’s approach with pentatonics are twofold. The obvious one is that it allows you to use pentatonic scales over every chord. The less obvious benefit is that since you’ve translated everything to minor pentatonic scales, the roots will always be in the same locations in the rectangle and stack, so there will be somewhat less “mental math” at performance time.

6. The secret of Pat Martino’s approach

I don’t think Pat Martino was thinking about pentatonic scales when he developed his system, but his chord-scale translations ended up being exactly what you would get if you just searched for the minor pentatonic scale that contains the most notes from the chord you’re soloing over and where the root of the scale is one of the chord tones.

One way to see this is to create a grid representing an idealized fretboard with all 4ths string spacing and to plot out all the notes of the chord everywhere they could be played. Then, take a pentatonic stack (which contains all five notes of the pentatonic scale) and move it around the grid until it overlaps the maximum number of notes.

Here is what that looks like for a dominant 7 chord:

And for a m7♭5:

You can also accomplish the same thing by mapping scale shapes and chord tones to one string, sliding one against the other until the maximum number of notes matches. The end result would look like this for a dominant 7 chord:

And for a m7♭5:

So, if you ever come across a chord that Martino’s method didn’t explicitly address, you could use one of these methods to find an appropriate substitution. Basically, if Martino hasn’t explicitly covered a chord, just find the minor pentatonic shape that shares the most chord tones by sliding patterns around visually to identify overlaps.

7. Putting this into practice

My biggest recommendation if you want to try out some of these ideas is to start with a “Freeze” or infinite sustain pedal, as described in my lesson on exploring consonance and dissonance. Use the pedal to create a drone from the sound of a target chord and practice either temporary shifts (short departures as described above) or using Pat Martino’s recommended substitutions. I intend to do a video on this, so stay tuned for that.

If you want to apply Pat Martino’s approach to a chord progression, you’ll need to analyze the chord progression chord by chord and write down (and then memorize) the appropriate substitutions. “Expensive” jazz chords with altered tones may require special consideration, and if you need that level of analysis, I recommend reading Martino’s book or talking to a knowledgeable jazz instructor.

That’s it for now…happy jamming!