Monday, September 26, 2005
Van Eps' Jazz tutorial books - worth a look
Pentatonics circle practice trick
Was noodling around with pentatonics and I discovered this trick for practicing them around the circle of 5ths. I've read a considerable amount on pentatonics from numerous sources, but never heard of this trick. Here it is.
Locate any closed position for any major pentatonic (12356) that you may already know. Now locate the root(s). Drop the root string(s) by a semitone, and you get the pentatonic 5 semitones down. I.e., going around the circle of fifths in the flatted direction. Repeat this 4 times to find all five positions. Doing this the fifth time repeats the first position, down a fret.
Example: Say you begin with F major pentaonic. Drop the F string(s) by a fret (to E) to obtain the C major pentatonic. Drop the C strings (to B) to obtain the G major pentatonic. Drop G to F# to obtain D major pentatonic. Once more dropping D to C# giving the A pentatonic and you'll have traversed F,C,G,D,A. The next time (dropping the A) gives E, which repeats the first position (that was used for F) lowered by a fret. Etc.
I'm using an alternative tuning on my guitar, and I'm curious if the pattern I found holds for standard tuning, and in general. It seems like it would but I don't feel like retuning my guitar just to find this out.
The tuning I use (gADGBd) gives five pentatonics positions, one for each mode. Starting with F and working down the circle through A gives me all five pentatonics positions that lie within the same region of fretboard. Then E gives the same position as the F, lowered by a fret, and the cycle repeats.
Work through it on paper, and you'll see how it works. What I'm curious about is whether it cycles through the pentatonics fingering positions in the similar way as it does on my tuning for standard and other alternative tunings. If so, this may be an easy way to teach pentatonics on guitar (standard tuning) as well.
See if it works for you and let me (us all) know.
Was noodling around with pentatonics and I discovered this trick for practicing them around the circle of 5ths. I've read a considerable amount on pentatonics from numerous sources, but never heard of this trick. Here it is.
Locate any closed position for any major pentatonic (12356) that you may already know. Now locate the root(s). Drop the root string(s) by a semitone, and you get the pentatonic 5 semitones down. I.e., going around the circle of fifths in the flatted direction. Repeat this 4 times to find all five positions. Doing this the fifth time repeats the first position, down a fret.
Example: Say you begin with F major pentaonic. Drop the F string(s) by a fret (to E) to obtain the C major pentatonic. Drop the C strings (to B) to obtain the G major pentatonic. Drop G to F# to obtain D major pentatonic. Once more dropping D to C# giving the A pentatonic and you'll have traversed F,C,G,D,A. The next time (dropping the A) gives E, which repeats the first position (that was used for F) lowered by a fret. Etc.
I'm using an alternative tuning on my guitar, and I'm curious if the pattern I found holds for standard tuning, and in general. It seems like it would but I don't feel like retuning my guitar just to find this out.
The tuning I use (gADGBd) gives five pentatonics positions, one for each mode. Starting with F and working down the circle through A gives me all five pentatonics positions that lie within the same region of fretboard. Then E gives the same position as the F, lowered by a fret, and the cycle repeats.
Work through it on paper, and you'll see how it works. What I'm curious about is whether it cycles through the pentatonics fingering positions in the similar way as it does on my tuning for standard and other alternative tunings. If so, this may be an easy way to teach pentatonics on guitar (standard tuning) as well.
See if it works for you and let me (us all) know.
