Pentatonic Soloing Over Guitar Chords.

Soloing over guitar chords can be quite easy when using the minor pentatonic scale. Add spice and power to your guitar solo’s with these simple but highly effective techniques. You’ll be surprised with how much can be done.

Most guitar players start with the minor pentatonic scale when learning to solo. Often times, people don’t learn to use the scale to it’s full potential and this can hold you back.

Here, I’ll show you an easy way to use the pentatonic scale to solo over the three most common guitar chord types: Major, Minor and Dominant 7th Chords.

Major Chords

A Major chord always has a relative minor chord. The easy way to find the ‘relative’ minor of any major chord on a guitar is to take the note three half-steps (3 frets) below the root note of the major chord.

Example: a C major chord – the root note is C. On a guitar, the note 3 frets below a C note is A. Therefore, A minor is the relative minor of C major.

To solo over a C major chord, use the A minor pentatonic scale and you’ll instantly discover that it sounds great!

Example-2: F major chord – three frets below the root of F, you will find D. You’ll use a D minor pentatonic scale over an F major chord.

Example -3: G major chord – three frets below the G root note you’ll find E.  You’ll use the E minor pentatonic to solo over a G chord.

Now, you may have noticed that I listed C, F and G major chords there. Coincidentally, They are the 1, 4 and 5 chords of the ‘KEY’ of C Major. This applies to all instruments, not just guitar.

More about this later…

Minor Chords

An easy way to view this… simply use the minor pentatonic scale directly on the minor chord itself. You can do this in any key, over any minor chord.

Example - Use D minor pentatonic for a D minor chord, an E minor pentatonic for an E minor chord, an A minor pentatonic for an A minor Chord.

If you’ll notice I used D, E and A minor chords as the example… These chords are the 2, 3 and 6 chords of the ‘KEY’ of C Major?

More about that later, too…

Dominant 7th Chords

You have a couple of choices here. But basically, you would use the relative minor pentatonic, or the minor pentatonic a tone below the root of the dom7 chord.

Example – over G7, you could use either E minor pent (relative minor), or D min pentatonic.

The reason you could use the D minor pentatonic over a G7 chord is because the Dmi chord and G7 chord often go together in chord progressions. Forcing a Dmi sound over a G7 chord gives a G7sus sound.

KEY Perspective Viewing

All of these examples were based on the KEY of C Major.

An interesting thing is that you can use just the A minor pentatonic alone for ALL the chords in C, or you can also use the D and E minor pentatonics to add some color and more conformity to the chords being used at the time.

Remember, these principles apply to whatever chord you are playing at any time, but can also be applied on a KEY basis,which is a more encompassing picture.

The Key of C Major has these chords:

C, Dm, Em, F, G7, Am, Bmin7b5.

A-minor pentatonic can be used over them all, or just the C and Am chords.

D minor pentatonic can be used over the F and Dm chords.

E minor can be used over the Em and G7 chords.

The (Bmi7b5) is not used quite as aften, but a good choice for that is the Dm pentatonic. Though you can use either of the three pentatonics from the C Major scale – Am, Dm or Em… You’ll ultimately need to decide for yourself which sounds best for the music you’re playing. I suggest using them all. That’s the beauty of music.

Don’t underestimate the power of Pentatonic scales. If you use them as we’ve described in this article you’ll quickly be able to harness the full power from these staunch sounding scales.

I hope this article has helped you to expand your guitar playing.

Would you please leave a quick comment with your thoughts?

Thank You,
Bob

Ask Bobby Molton Your Guitar Related Questions:

1. Ask in the comments section, or
2. Email Bob Molton at Bob@BobMolton.com
3. I’ll be sure to answer back ASAP!!
   Thanks alot

Here’s a question from Klint

QUESTION:

1. Hey Robert… thanks for the lessons… I appreciate you going to all the trouble posting those lessons. I’ve got one question…How do you create a chord using the modes? I mean, your chord progression in the Lydian mode sounds sweet, and I wanna how learn to do it. How do you do it? thanks…

ANSWER: Another Great question! One of the things I teach all of my guitar students is that just because you don’t know the name of a chord doesn’t mean it’s not a chord… With that being said, every mode has it’s different shapes and petterns, which makes it slightly different from the one before it, or ahead of it. Although they are all the same notes as the original scale, the notes are in a different order and that creates different shapes and patterns.

EXAMPLE: If I’m playing in the Lydian Mode, it has a certain pattern that must be followed, and within that pattern you can experiment with playing any of those notes together. This is how you create chords within a mode. You can play two notes together, or three, four, five notes together, and then you tie all of it together with little runs from within the mode.

Overview - you’re playing several notes together using only the notes within the mode pattern, and stringing them together with single notes from the same mode as well. This all goes back to what I was saying about how it doesn’t matter whether you know the names of these chords or not, as long as you can apply them musically and be comfortable doing it. You can always learn the names later. This method gets the ball rolling much quicker in a musical sense.

Re-apply this method to all the modes and you’ll soon be creating some real musical compositions.

Hope that sheds new light on the subject…Please leave me a comment to let me know how this helps you. Be assured, others will learn from your questions and comments as well.

More soon…

Bob Molton

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Ask Bobby Molton Your Guitar Related Questions:

1. Ask in the comments section, or
2. Email Bob Molton at info@topfuelguitar.com 

I’ll be sure to answer back ASAP!!
Thanks alot

Here’s a question from Tyler Davis, WI .

QUESTION:

1. I’m gathering information about building my own guitar and was wondering if you could give some insight on what the different types of woods sound like for an electric guitar body…

ANSWER: Great question! The wood tones from an electric guitar can really vary, because wood really does sound, and resonate differently from each other. It also varies from the shape and thickness of the cut. The best thing to do is research several different wood types and see what type is closest to the guitar tone you are going for. Then start with that wood.

EXAMPLE: If you want a real bright sound with lots of punch and sustain, you might lean more toward maple wood. If you want a real dark sound with lots of bass and growl, you might lean toward mahogany.

So you can see that the wood is the most important place to start.

Here’s a video to give you further insight…

Hope that sheds new light on the subject…Please leave me a comment to let me know how this helps you. Be assured, others will learn from your questions and comments as well.

More soon…

Bob Molton

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I’m answering your questions in the order they come in.
Please ask your question in the comments section, or email me at bob@bobmolton.com

I’ll be sure to answer back ASAP!!
Thanks alot

Here’s a question from Mike in Barrie, Ontario:

Hello Robert, my name is Mike, Ive been playing guitar for about 4 years now and i am looking for some advice to spice up my guitar playing. I feel i have used the pentatonic scale far too many times and that is why i am going to learn the scale modes you have put on You Tube.

QUESTION:

1. I would like to know when you would use these different modes and some of the patterns i can incorporate into them.

ANSWER: You would use these mode patterns to play more melodic, and with much more feel. You see each mode has it’s own unique tonality to it, and the key to using the modes, is to bring out the unique tonality each mode has to offer. Keep in mind that modes are just ONE SCALE’S worth of notes played in seven different orders. They are always the same notes, otherwise it would become another Scale instead of another mode. Each scale has it’s own modes that follow, including the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale has five modes instead of seven because there are only five notes in the PENTATONIC SCALE. It can get overwhelming if you try to learn to many scales and their modes all at once. The most important mode system to learn is the MAJOR SCALE MODES. This is what i teach in the guitar mode videos. It’s the guidlines for everything. In my opinion the second most important modes are the Pentatonic Modes. I’ll be releasing a whole series on the Pentatonic Modes in the near future.

====================

Another question i have is about amps. Right now i am using an LTD EC-1000 LP with a Boss Ds1 and a chorus pedal through and old Yorkvile Sound Bass amp from 1972 called a Sonax 550B (solidstate). 
 

QUESTION: 

1. I would like to know if there is an amp out there around $1,300 that provides a nice beefy but still “rectifireish” tone.
   ANSWER: Well, since you mentioned you wanted something “rectifireish” I would keep a close eye on eBay and find a killer Boogie Dual Rectifier for under $1300.00. I know you can find them because i’ve watched them from time to time and you can actually get deals lower than that. The key is to keep your eye on the auctions and watch them for a week or two before you actually get one. This allow you to know what your up against by the time several auctions have ran their course. Also, wait till the last few minutes to bid because you don’t want to drive the price up too early. You may have to bid a couple times but know your limits and stop if if it’s beyond your budget.Me personally, I would buy a used Marshall JCM 800, Mid 1980′s, master volume, vertical input, and drive the front with and old Boss Overdrive (OD-1). That Set-up will always deliver the goods!!

    

Hope that sheds new light…Please leave me a comment to let me know how this helps you. Others will learn from your questions and comments as well.

More soon…

Bob

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Hello Guitar Players,
I wanted to share the answer to the question that many people seem to be asking.
Guitar modes can be intimidating, and more confusing than they need to be. Here’s a brief example of how to view them more clearly. 

Here’s a Question from Jordan Mackie: Well, I am confused by this whole mode business. I have previously learned 5 caged shapes for the major scale.

Are modes basically just giving names to all those shapes?

Say I wanted to write a solo in ”A Lydian” am I limited to that one shape on the neck that you did in your video, Or does the Lydian scale have other shapes all around the neck?

Good Question, first off, I think it’s very important to understand the difference between modes and scales.

• Scales: Scales are a series of notes that create a particular sound. Typically, there are seven notes within a scale and the eight note is the octave.  Whatever the notes are within that scale, are what gives it it’s tonal identity. To identify the scale by name you would use a name such as “Harmonic Minor” or “Melodic Minor” etc… The important thing to remember is that anytime you change a note within that scale it’s becomes a different scale entirely, with a different name, and a different sound, and different feel.

• Modes: Modes are the particular set of notes (that make up a scale) played with different orders, but always the same exact notes. For example, if you had the scale – (ABCDEFGA)  the next mode would be (BCDEFGAB) and the next mode would be (CDEFGABC) and so on… 

You’ll notice that the notes never changed, only the order in which they were played. The way you bring the tonality of the mode out is by leaning on the beginning note of each mode. It takes practice and ear training to get a good grip on the tonality differences, but rest assured your ear will begin to pickup on the sound very quickly.  This should make things much easier to view in your minds eye.

As far as the different positions you’ve learned, it really doesn’t matter as long as you are playing the same notes, such as if I would play a G major scale in 3 or 4 different positions, it’s still the G major scale, it’s just played in a different position. A mode only changes when you change the order of the notes used in a particular scale.

Hope this sheds more light on the subject.
Please comment on how this has helped you.

More Later…

Bobby Molton

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Please leave me a comment or a question.