by Tom Watson

Goal: Learn to improvise over a chord progression using form 2 of the major pentatonic scale.

How: By using these notes to improvise over this chord progression.

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Introduction

I hope you spent some quality time noodling over the A major chord progression introduced in Lesson One using form 1 of the major pentatonic scale - and that you had a good time!

In Lesson Two we're going to expand our knowledge of the major pentatonic scale by moving our fingers up the fretboard a bit and learning form 2.

But first...

Chord forms and scale forms

Scales and chords go hand in hand. They rely on each other. As you'll see in this lesson, form 1 of the major pentatonic scale is closely related to a particular form of the major chord, as is each of the five forms of the major pentatonic scale (and the major scale itself).

In Lesson One we learned form 1 of the major pentatonic scale in the key of A major. Here it is again:

And, you'll recall that we used the major chords of A, D, and E to construct the chord progression we improvised to using the scale form above.

What I didn't point out in Lesson One is the close relationship form 1 of the major pentatonic scale has with a particular form (fingering/voicing/inversion) of the A major chord.

Take a look at this way of playing the A major chord, then compare it to the form 1 major pentatonic scale pattern in the key of A (diagrammed above).

What you'll notice is that form 1 of the major pentatonic scale is basically the A major chord shown above with just a couple of notes added.

This may not seem like an important revelation at the moment, but when we get to more complex applications of scale patterns and a discussion of arpeggios, understanding the close relationship between chords and scales will prove to be very helpful.

Form 2 of the major pentatonic scale in A major [back to top]

Listen to this scale pattern:

Stream: Form 2 of the major pentatonic scale in A major

And here is the major chord form that relates to the form 2 pentatonic scale:

Improvising with form 2 of the major pentatonic scale in A major [back to top]

The next step is to practice improvising using the notes and fingerings of form 2. I suggest you improvise over the same chord progression we used in Lesson One (the number in parenthesis indicates how many beats the chord receives):

A(4)-D(4)-A(4)-E(4)-A(4)-D(4)-A(2)-E(2)-A(4)

And I suggest you play the A major chord as I diagrammed it above as form 2 of the A major chord (standard major barre chord at the fifth fret).

Here's a sample improvisation using only the notes in form 2 over the above chord progression.

Stream: Example one, improvisation using form 2 of the major pentatonic scale in A major

Not overly inspiring, but then we have no melody to work with, in fact, we have no underlying song. What does the sound of the simple background chord progression suggest to you?

Here's a second improvisation sample using a different chord progression - just two chords, Amaj7 and Dmaj7. The chord progression's different, but the notes used to improvise with are precisely the same as those used in the example above. Take a listen.

Stream: Example two, improvisation using form 2 of the major pentatonic scale in A major

Sounds like a much different style, but again, the same notes were used. This gives you some idea of how flexible these scale patterns can be.

In the next lesson

In Lesson Three we'll look at form 3 of the major pentatonic scale in the key of A and talk about combining a couple of these patterns when improvising.

Meanwhile, noodle away!

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