What creates a minor pentatonic scale?

Answer 1

A Pentatonic Scale is a select 5 notes out of your standard 7-note scale, hence the name: Pentatonic.

A Minor Pentatonic uses notes from the Natural Minor Scale. These notes are:

Root(1), Minor 3rd(b3rd), 4th, 5th, and Minor 7th.

Another way to think about it: You are skipping the 2nd and the 6th.

In terms of intervals:

Root--W+H--b3rd--W--4th--W--5th--W+H--7th

Answer 2

Take a natural minor scale (1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7) and play only 1, b3, 4, 5, b7. For an A minor pentatonic, you would play A, C, D, E, G, while it's parent scale, the A natural minor would be A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

Answer 3

There are a many ways of producing a minor pentatonic scale. Here are two, one that uses intervals and one that uses the minor scale:

Intervals: Pick any note, then jump up a minor third. Then, a major second, another major second, and yet another major second. From there, jump up a minor third. You've just played all the notes for the pentatonic scale of the note you began on. See below:

Starting note: C

+minor 3rd: Eb

+major 2nd: F

+major 2nd: G

+minor 3rd: Bb

If you add another minor second, you'll end up on C again.

-Minor Scales:The minor scale has 7 notes, and "pentatonic scale" literally means "5 note scale". In the pentatonic scale, these five notes are a certain distance away from each other. To create this from the minor scale, you just have to remove the second and sixth notes. See below:

A Natural Minor: A B C D E F G

A Pentatonic Minor: A C D E G

Done! Now you're ready to play blues solos and sing folk songs (and a million other things..).

Answer 4

Adding my perspective to the other 2 answers: Looking at the piano keyboard, the black keys, played by themselves, will give you both a major and a minor pentatonic scale. The black keys come in groups of 3 and 2. If you start at the 1st of the group of 3 (the one on the left) and play them upwards (to your right), when you've played 5 black keys, you've played a major pentatonic scale. If you start one key to the left of where you started before - that is, the right-hand key in the pair of 2 black keys - and play 5 notes going up, you've played a minor pentatonic scale. The names of these scales are F-sharp pentatonic and D-sharp minor pentatonic, respectively. The important thing to see here is that a minor pentatonic scale shares the same 5 notes with its "relative major" pentatonic, but its "home note" is a minor third (i.e. 3 half-steps) lower than the home note of its relative major pentatonic scale. This is the same relationship that major and minor scales have with each other. The other 2 answers above give the example of the C pentatonic scale (C-D-E-G-A) which shares the same 5 notes as its relative minor pentatonic scale (A-C-D-E-G), but its home note, C, is a minor third above the home note (A) of its relative minor. Got it?

Answer 5

A minor pentatonic scale is a scale consisting of five notes. It can be thought of from the perspective of a minor key, where an A minor pentatonic would be the 1, flat 3, 4, 5, and flat 7 scale degrees of A natural minor or from the key of the relative major, where A minor pentatonic would be the 6, 1, 2, 3, and 5 of C major. In either case, the notes of A minor pentatonic are the same: A, C, D, E, and G. It uses the same notes as the C major pentatonic scale.

Answer 6

Lets view the A minor pentatonic scale for example.

The scale includes scale degrees 1st, flat 3rd, 4th, 5th, and a flat 7th. So the scale consist of notes A, C, D, E, & G. That's what creates a minor pentatonic scale.