Jump to content
HAPPY NEW YEAR, TO ALL OUR HARMONY CENTRAL FORUMITES AND GUESTS!! ×

Help with chords that work with minor pents


Recommended Posts

Posted

Well, first of all, pentatonics are a broad subject. A single pentatonic scale fits in three different major keys (and the three relative minor keys of those). Each of those keys have 7 chords the scale will work over. There is some overlap, however, and not all 7 chords are commonly used, so it's not as broad as it could be.

 

In other words, there are A LOT of chords that a single pentatonic can work over (which is IMO a strong point with pentatonics).

 

 

Ok, first off, let's approach this from a single key standpoint. Let's take G major.

 

In any major key, you can build a minor pentatonic off of the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th scale degrees. In the key of G major, that would be A minor pentatonic, B minor pentatonic, and E minor pentatonic.

 

 

So say you have a progression that is in the key of G. You now have 3 pentatonics to choose from. You can play any three over any chord from the key of G major at any time. Some will sound better than others, but they all work to a certain degree.

 

Say you have a progression of G Am Em C. At any point in time, you can switch between Am, Bm, and Em pentatonics. Each pentatonic highlights slightly different parts of the key of G major.

 

My personal favorites are Bm pent over G, Em pent over Am, Bm pent over Em, and B minor pent over C. However, those aren't the only choices I'd go with; they're just my favorite sounding ones. You could just play one over the whole progression if you wanted to.

 

 

This is probably the easiest way to think about them because you're more likely to be in a situation where you're trying to either solo or come up with a melody over a chord progression, rather than going the other direction and finding chords to go under a melody (much more difficult, but many more possibilities).

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...