As you learned in that post, this scale is called “pentatonic” because it has 5 notes. “Penta” is an ancient Greek prefix meaning “five.”

We unraveled the numerical names for other scales too…

In this lesson, I want to take it a step further and show you one easy shortcut you can implement to also learn all your minor pentatonic scales. Yes, minor!

The thing about minor stuff is that there’s always a relative major key you can piggy back on.

Let me explain…

Just like you learned in this prior lesson, every major key has a relative minor key. This relative minor key pretty much shares EVERYTHING with this major key. They share the same notes in their scales (except you just start and end on different notes). They even share the same chords.

The secret is the 6th tone (this is nothing new… all of those past lessons I’ve linked to above cover this). To find the relative minor of any major key, you just go to the 6th tone. If you play the SAME EXACT major scale starting and ending on the 6th tone, there’s your minor scale! So if I basically play the C major scale, starting and ending on “A” instead of “C,” I’ll be playing an “A minor” scale. It’s as simple as that.

Well, the pentatonic scale works the same exact way! No joke!

Recall from my past lesson how to play a pentatonic scale…

You just play a major scale without the 4th and 7th tones.

That leaves you with:

1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 6

In the key of C major, that’s:

C D E G A
1 2 3 5 6

Repeated, it looks like this:

C D E G A C D E G A C D E G A C D E G A C D E G A

or

1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6

So, to play the minor pentatonic, you don’t change the notes you play (just like you don’t change the notes of the major scale when you play its relative minor scale). You just change your starting and ending points.

C D E G A C D E G [A C D E G] A C D E G A C D E G A C D E G A

1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 [6 1 2 3 5] 6 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6

So the “A minor pentatonic” scale is:

A C D E G

Repeated, it looks like this:

A C D E G A C D E G A…

So that you can see another one at work, here’s the “Eb major pentatonic” scale:

Eb F G Bb C

Here it is repeated:

Eb F G Bb C Eb F G Bb C Eb F G Bb C

Since “C” is the 6th tone and therefore the relative minor of “Eb,” let’s play the C minor pentatonic scale from the same notes above.

C minor pentatonic

C Eb F G Bb

C minor pentatonic (repeated)

C Eb F G Bb C Eb F G Bb C Eb F G Bb

Doesn’t that look like something to you?

YES YES YES!

The minor pentatonic scale is basically the blues scale with one missing note!

For example, the C blues scale is:

C Eb F Gb G Bb C

Versus the C minor pentatonic:

C Eb F G Bb C

*Note the flat 5th note in the blues scale example. That’s the only difference between a minor pentatonic scale and the blues scale.

So if you know your regular pentatonic scales, you know your minor pentatonic scales… and if you know your minor pentatonic scales, you know your blues scales!

Do you see these patterns? Once you start recognizing these systems and shortcuts, less and less of it will be memorization and more will be just understanding how to do something else from something that you already know… on the spot!

That’s the key! And that’s why the 300-pg home study course is so powerful. You learn the underlying systems, patterns, and shortcuts… not just memorization.

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Until next time —

Blues bass lines, in fact.

You know those ones you’d hear Ray Charles rumbling on his left hand?

Heck, those bass lines were what gave me the confidence to keep going because I could actually play something that sounded like something… hehe.

And I was the type to show off when family came over so it got addicting. :)

My grandma and her brothers (I never had immediate uncles but I had tons of great uncles) would say “that boy is bad” because those bluesy bass lines were right up their alley. Play something from Disney and you immediately lost their attention. Oh yeah… “bad” is good as in “he can play!”

And now I’m going to share with you some of the concepts I used over 18 years ago to play some of my favorite blues bass lines.

(My experienced players will most likely already know this. My up-and-comers… pay a lot of attention):

Using major triads to learn bass lines

My first bass lines came from regular major chords.

For example, the “C major” chord is: C+E+G

But if you arpeggiate the chord (that means to break it up so that you’re only playing one note at a time), you can turn it into a bass line.

C > E > G > E > C > E >G > E > C

Add some flavor and play the C twice (really quickly)…

C > C > E > G > E > C > C > E >G > E > C

Just take any major chord, break up the notes, and play them going up and back down the chord. Now, play it in rhythm! Don’t be stiff!

Using dominant seventh chords to play bass lines

The C dominant 7 chord (aka “C7″) is: C+E+G+Bb

(Note the flatted 7th tone up top… the Bb).

So, apply the same strategy but what we’ll do is add a note to make it sound better.

We’ll add “A,” which happens to be the sixth tone of the scale.

So it looks like this

C > E > G > A > Bb
1 > 3 > 5 > 6 > b7

(I’ve put the numbers below the notes so that you can apply this to any major key, as long as you know your scales and what numbers correspond to which tones of the scale).

So play that bass run up the chord and then back down…

C > E > G > A > Bb > A > G > E > C

You can even play C twice to add some more flavor (but you’ll need to do it much quicker than the rest of the notes and slightly off beat)

C > C > E > G > A > Bb > A > G > E > C

Adding flavor

Now it’s time to apply some “Ray Charles” to your bass line.

(The bass line I’m talking about starts at about 1:45 so fast forward until you see Ray Charles showing Jamie Foxx how to play it. Jamie picks it up right away).

It’s the same bass line created from the dominant seventh chord I just showed you… it’s just in the key of Ab major instead of C.

Ray does this little thing in the beginning (it’s just Eb coming down to Bb using the notes of the Ab major scale… Eb > Db > C > Bb… then leading back up to Ab using Gb > G > Ab).

Then it’s the main bass line

Ab > C > Eb > F > Gb > F > Eb > C > Ab

But you’ll have to double up on your bass line by playing a lower Ab with your pinky and a higher Ab with your thumb, then the same pattern for each of the notes.

Low Ab, then high Ab — Low C, then high C — Low Eb, then high Eb… so on and so forth

Once you master the speed, you’ll sound just like Ray Charles and Jamie Foxx!

How long did it take you to figure out?

It’s important to note that he has a recorded bass line, which gives him the opportunity to play chords in his left hand.

Here’s the basic pattern that he’s playing.

C7 —- F7 —- C7 —- C7 —- F7 —- F7 —- C7 —- C7 —- G7 —- F7 —- C7

Replay the video above and see if you can following along from the beginning. Every time he switches his chord go to the next chord. Every chord, for the most part is switching either every 4 beats or every 8 beats (sometimes you get two C or F chords in a row).

Normally you’d play a C7, F7, and G7 like this:

C E G Bb (C7 pronounced “C Seventh”)

F A C Eb (F7)

G B D F (G7)

(Note: You can play these chords on your right and play the root bass notes (”C,” “F,” or “G”) on your left if you don’t have a bass player).

But since James has a bass player, he’s playing tritones in the left hand.

Tritones are interesting little fellas.

They are diminished fifth intervals. I don’t have enough time to really delve into that part of it but just think of them as 6 half steps apart.

So if you wanted to form a tritone based on C, you would start on C and count 6 half steps up.

C to Db is 1 half step
Db to D is another half step
D to Eb is another half step
Eb to E is another half step
E to F is another half step
F to Gb is the last half step.

That makes 6 (for my folks new to counting in “half steps”).

Here are all the tritones written all in flats for simplicity’s sake:

C + Gb
Db + G
D + Ab
Eb + A
E + Bb
F + B

Now watch what’s going to happen…

Here are the remaining 6 tritones

Gb + C
G + Db
Ab + D
A + Eb
Bb + E
B + F

Basically the second half of the tritone list is just like the first but they’re inverted. Which means instead of C+Gb, now it’s Gb+C.

This makes tritones very versatile. You only need to know 6 and you can flip them to get the other 6.

So let’s recall our 3 magic chords for this 12-bar blues progression:

C E G Bb (C7)

F A C Eb (F7)

G B D F (G7)

Because they are seventh chords, they inherently carry a TRITONE. Yup, that’s true. So if you can figure out what tritones are used in these three chords, then you don’t have to play the full chord. You can abbreviate these chords with their tritone “shortcuts.”

How’s 4 notes down to 2 for ya? Easier to play right? Definitely! But it gets better… I’ll talk about the “better” part later.

So did you find the tritone in each of those chords???

You should have gotten:

E+Bb for the C7

A+Eb for the F7

B+F for the G7

SHORTCUT: Basically the 3rd and lowered 7th tone of the chord (E is the third in C major and Bb is the lowered seventh in C major) will create your tritone.

Now for the “better” part…

What’s cool about tritones is that when you’re moving in fourths (as in the case of a C7 going to an F7), they are extremely easy to play.

Notice this:

Tritone for C7 = E+Bb
Tritone for F7 = A+Eb

Can one of these tritones be “flipped” to their other pair to make this easier to play?

Abzzzzoooooooolutelyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

You could do this two ways.

1) Change the C7 tritone
2) Or change the F7 tritone

So you could either go from E+Bb (which substitutes for C7 chord) to Eb+A (which substitutes for F7 chord)… which means all you have to do is lower each finger ONE note… that’s it! ONE NOTE!

Or you can change the first chord:

Bb+E to A+Eb

Your call! Switch em’ up here and there.

Now, what would you use for the G7 tritone if you were currently on the “E+Bb” tritone?

Which G7 tritone is closer?

F+B or B+F

“Give me the F+B tritone for $100 Alex!”

So I hope through this post that I not only introduced you to the 12-bar blues pattern but I’ve also shown you the power and convenience of tritones and how you can “flip” them to make it easier for your left hand to flow from chord to chord.

If you’re playing tritones correctly and using the right chord for the right moment, you should never have to slide more than a few notes. Tritones should be right next to each other. After all, there’s only 6 of them and the other flipped 6 use the same notes as the first.

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See ya next time!