Blending major and minor pentatonic
Minor pentatonic with the major 3rd added — the move behind most of the blues playing that sounds effortless.
- Notes
- A · C · C♯ · D · E · G
- Formula
- 1 · ♭3 · 3 · 4 · 5 · ♭7
- Notes in the scale
- 6
This is not really a scale so much as the thing experienced blues players actually do: minor pentatonic with the major 3rd available. It gives you both thirds — the ♭3 that sounds bluesy and the 3 that matches the chord — sitting a fret apart.
The interest is entirely in the space between them. Bend the ♭3 up toward the 3, or slide between the two, and you get the ambiguity that the whole idiom is built on. The sound lives in the movement from one to the other rather than in either note by itself.
Start by adding just the major 3rd on one string in one position rather than trying to learn a new six-string shape. One extra note, used deliberately, changes the sound more than a new scale would.
Where it sits on the neck
In box 1 there is exactly one place the major 3rd appears: the 6th fret of the G string, one fret above the C you already play at the 5th. One dot added to a shape you own, and that is the whole scale.
Everywhere else the relationship is the same — find a ♭3 and the major 3rd is the next fret up. In the position starting at the 7th fret, the ♭3 sits at the 8th fret of the low E and the high e strings, and the major 3rd is at the 9th on both. You never have to remember where the major 3rds are. You have to remember where the ♭3s are, which you already do.
- Root on the A string — the open strings to the 3rd fret.
- Root on the G string — the 2nd fret to the 5th.
- Root on the low E string — the 5th fret to the 8th.
- Root on the D string — the 7th fret to the 10th.
- Root on the B string — the 10th fret to the 13th.
What to play it over
The I chord, and be careful everywhere else. Over an A7 the added C♯ is a note the chord already contains, which is why the blend sounds so settled there: you are playing the ♭3 for grit and the 3 for agreement, a single fret apart.
Over the IV it turns. C♯ is the major 7th of a D7 and it will not sit still. Over the V it is harmless but pointless — merely the 6th of an E7, adding nothing the pentatonic did not already have.
So the honest description of this scale is minor pentatonic everywhere, plus one extra note that belongs to the I chord. It is a device rather than a key-wide scale, and using it that way is what separates players who sound like they are drifting between major and minor from players who sound like they cannot decide.
The common mistake
Playing the C, the C♯ and the D in a row. On the G string in box 1 they are the 5th, 6th and 7th frets — three consecutive dots — and a hand that finds them will run them as a chromatic scrap that belongs to a different idiom entirely. The two thirds are not neighbours to be run past. They are one note with two positions. Bend from the C toward the C♯ and stop somewhere between them, or slide, or hammer; anything that makes the movement audible rather than the arrival.