Gaining Fluency with Pentatonic Scales

To gain fluency with pentatonic scales, just as you would with ordinary scales, it's really great to practice patterns. You may remember in Part One, there were three groups of ordinary scale patterns:

• A three-note group
• A four-note group
• Alternating notes or thirds in the case of an ordinary scale.

Applying the F Major Pentatonic Scale

So let's do the same three groups with an F major pentatonic scale. You remember in "Cloud Nine," we applied this scale not only to the root of the chord but also to the fifth of the chord.

• In the left hand, I'm going to be playing an F major chord (F major 7).
• I'll also do some of the patterns with a B flat major 7 using the same right-hand scale.

That's the F major pentatonic coming off the fifth of the B flat major chord in the left hand.

Three-Note Group

Here's a three-note group just going up and down the scale.

• It's a two-bar loop.
• I'm going to keep the chords on the first beat of each bar.

The first easiest way to play a three-note group is in triplets:

1, 2, 3 and 4 and A.

You can extend that above and below, but that's a basic two-bar loop.

Now I'll do the same loop but with a different phrasing and play B flat major in the left hand.

• So now it's not triplets anymore because triplets aren't going to work if you're in a straight eight feel.
• Here's an alternative: Two eighth notes and a quarter note.

1, 2, 3, 4.

That's a bit straight.

The third option is to play the first two notes as a pickup before the bar line.

1, 2, 3.

Four-Note Groups

Now let's look at the next category, which is four-note groups. We'll do this in straight eights to start with over F major in the left hand:

1, 2, 3, 4.

Now again, that's a bit straight. So let's use a pickup and play the same pattern, but with the bar lines and left hand in a different place.

• I'm going to put the last note of the group on the beat.
• This is going to sound more interesting:

1, 2, 3.

So, that's one way of displacing the rhythm. The third example uses just a one-note pickup. For a change, we're going to do this going down:

1, 2, 3, 4.

It's important to put the left hand in because otherwise, you've got no reference point. You don't know where the first beat of the bar is.

Another left hand you could do is to play root, five, root.

Alternate Notes

Now, the third category, in many ways, the most interesting, is to play alternate notes.

• In an ordinary scale, this would just be thirds.
• But with a pentatonic scale, it takes on a more interesting character because some of the notes are a third apart and some are a fourth apart, so you get a more quartal sound.

Here's a straight pattern:

• You can get a really nice result with that pattern if you play the pairs of notes alternately up and down.

Starting on the top, changing to B flat in the left hand, the same pattern in the right:

1, 2, 3, 4.

In the third example, we're going to go back to the original pattern, alternating notes. We're going to do it in triplets, which gives it a completely different sound.

• This is a great effect if you're playing in a swing feel.
• It's not so hard to pull it off in straight eights.

So here we are with a B flat major left hand, F major pentatonic in the right.

Practice Tips

Try to get fluent with those. You want to practice them in different keys.

• It's a bit easier when you have a black note sometimes, rather than all white notes, as with F major pentatonic.
• So you need to be able to adapt these patterns to whatever chord you want to play over.