I had an argument with a 'SMART' keyboard nerd today......

[bayou bostick]

I was tring to pick up some keybord licks and we got on the subject of pentatonic scales. I played a typical G minor pentatonic scale. (3-6, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-6, 3) or the notes G Bb C D F.

His comment was "Guitar players are so stupid. That is a blues scale without the flat 5, not a minor pentatonic! A major pentatonic scale is 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. The minor version of that scale would be 1, 2, flat3, 5, flat 6. That scale is rarely ever played!

He threw me. Then I said " Well, if a regular Major scale shares it's notes with it's relative minor, why wouldn't the pentatonic do the same?"

His answer was, "Well, I don't know, but a pentatonic scale, wether major or minor, is built on the same scale degrees"

Could 15 years of guitar study make me wrong?????

[Tele-Bob]

They do share notes. The keyboard player is right. He's just being an asshole about it.

"A major pentatonic scale is 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. The minor version of that scale would be 1, 2, flat3, 5, flat 6. That scale is rarely ever played!"

If you play solos over songs like All Along The Watch Tower, Don't Fear The Reeper, or Stairway to Heaven where you're playing Am, G, F, then the pent minor scale you want to be playing has a b6 in it as well as a b7. You can even look at those tunes as being in the key of C if you want and trace the pent minor back to the ionian.

Sharing knowledge is a good thing. It's one of the ways we help eachother to learn. Too bad your keyboard friend decided to be a jerk about it. But he is right.

[Old Tele man]

sometimes (often?) the message is FAR more important than the messenger...however, it's SO MUCH FUN to first "shoot" the messenger (even when they're right) and then, later, read the message!

[chuckocaster]

they guy could have simply said that you leave the seventh scale degree out of a pentatonic, simple enough. don't sweat it man, i get that shit all the time at my music school. i get put down because i'm some "rock and roll guitar player." but i think i hold my own fine, especially when we start analyzing bach or something and i get a higher score than the "real" musicians".