Something isn’t making sense to me.
I record a chord progression. It’s a I-vi-ii-V7 in the key of G. So G-Em-Am-D7. Basic 4 counts per chord.
I also use a capo on the 2nd fret. So that transposes it up to the key of A.
But when I play a minor pentatonic scale, first pattern, at the 5th fret…it doesn’t seem to fit. When I play the same pattern at the 2nd fret, it fits a lot better, but that would be key of F# I think.
Shouldn’t a minor pentatonic scale, pattern 1, at the fifth fret sound correct over chords in the key of A?
F# minor is the relative minor scale to A major, so they use the same notes, just in a different order. So that’s why what you thought was F# minor pentatonic sounded right over a song in A major.
Yeah, since your first response, I did a search and read about the “3-fret major scale trick”. So now I’ve added to my music theory knowledge base, thanks to you. And once explained, it makes perfect sense.
Here’s one of the articles I read. This guy is very informative.
A common misconception because when playing over your regular I-IV -V blues stuff, a minor pentatonic works like a charm.
over your I and V(7) you will notice some tension but the typical one that gives blues its flavour. Blues tradition has trained our ears to accept minor-over-major tension. The clashing notes in the A minor pentatonic (C and G) function as gritty “blue notes” over A major and E major.
Though, this tension works well over the I IV (not present) and V chords When you play it over your other chords there, you miss the root anchors and dissonance (like C# versus C) will hurt your ear.
shifting the shape to the second fret transforms it into a F# pentatonic minor…which uses the same notes as A pentatonic MAJOR. (=parallel keys). That’s why it matches,: A major pentatonic over A Major. A pentatonic scale uses only 5 (‘penta’) of the 7 notes in a scale. so the pentatonic scale is always a subset of a more “complete” scale but the remain notes fit perfectly.
They use the same notes BUT the root notes are different though; a different center of gravity so to say. If you don’t mind the theory of how to use the root note as a safe landing spot and you just rely on our ear to see what “dot” sounds good; it matters little. If you want to build your improv around some solid base principles and you want to link the idea of the safe havens of root and 5th in your improv to what you hear, thinking from the right perspective (and root) will get you the most mileage