The Pentatonics: Two Scales, Five Notes, Endless Mileage

The short answer: the minor and major pentatonic scales are five-note subsets of their seven-note parents — drop two "spicy" degrees from each full scale and what's left is almost impossible to make sound wrong. Gitori's Pentatonics course covers both, why they're built the way they are, and where each one belongs.

Two scales, one trick: subtraction

• Minor pentatonic = natural minor (1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 ♭7) minus the 2 and ♭6 → 1 ♭3 4 5 ♭7. Removing those two removes the half-step clashes, leaving a scale where almost any note works over a minor or bluesy chord. It's the reigning champion of guitar solos everywhere — the full fretboard treatment is in The Minor Pentatonic course.
• Major pentatonic = major scale (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) minus the 4 and 7 → 1 2 3 5 6. Less famous among guitarists but the backbone of folk, country, and a huge swath of pop melody.

They're closely related: A minor pentatonic and C major pentatonic are the same five notes, same relative-minor relationship that links the full scales (relative major and minor explained).

Why five notes instead of seven

Every note you remove from a scale is a note you can't play "wrong." The two notes each pentatonic drops are exactly the ones most prone to clashing against the underlying chord — which is why pentatonic solos over a simple vamp almost never sound like a mistake, even played fast and unplanned. The tradeoff, covered honestly here, is expressiveness: fewer notes means less color, which is the whole argument in How to break out of the pentatonic box and Major vs minor pentatonic.

What the course covers

Deriving both pentatonics from their parent scales, hearing the difference in character, and knowing which contexts call for which — minor pentatonic over minor and dominant vamps, major pentatonic over major-key folk and country melody.

Before you start

The major and minor scales — pentatonics are defined as subtractions from them, so the parents come first.