What are Pentatonic Scales?
- Chris
- Apr 15
- 2 min read
A pentatonic scale is a scale made up of five notes.
It’s a very fundamental scale in many musical traditions around the world, including in Indian and Chinese classical music, Celtic traditional music, jazz and blues and many others.
But pentatonic scales aren’t just made up of any five notes – there are major pentatonic scales and minor pentatonic scales. Be warned – we’re going to be talking about degrees of the scale, so make sure you read our article on that first if you’re not quite confident with them yet!
The major pentatonic scale is made up of the ‘most assonant’ notes in the standard Western octave – in other words, the ones that sound the best. They are: 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6.
This is what the major pentatonic scale sounds like played on the piano:
There’s also a minor pentatonic scale. This is supposed to be similarly ‘assonant’ (or nice-sounding), and is made up of notes 1, minor 3, 4, 5 and minor 7.
This is what the minor pentatonic scale sounds like played on the piano:
Interestingly, the minor pentatonic scale actually forms the basis of the blues scale, which is commonly used for jazz improvisation. Just add in a flat 5th (a.k.a. sharp 4th) to make a ‘tri-tone’ interval or ‘blue note’ and your minor pentatonic scale will get a lovely bluesy flavour!
How to play a pentatonic scale
Playing the pentatonic scale is easy, it’s only five notes and it sounds really pleasing – no tricky accidentals here!
Let’s try the C major pentatonic scale as an example – find your instrument and get ready to play or sing (it might be useful to use an instrument or tuner to guide you if you’re singing!).
Starting on C, we’ll move up through D, E, then hop to G, A, and up to C. Back down again – top C again, then hop down to A, G, hop to E, D and back to the original root note of C, where we started. How did that sound? Try it a few more times to get comfortable with it.
Want to try a minor pentatonic scale? No problem. It’s just the same as a major pentatonic scale but with slightly different steps.
Because A minor is the relative minor of C major, let’s try that.
Starting on A, we’ll move up through C – can you hear how it sounds minor now? – then D, E, hop up to G, and up to A. Back down again? Top A again, then G, hop down to E, D, C, and down to A again where we started.
So there we have it! That’s how pentatonic scales work and how to play them. Interested in practising them more? Sign up to our mailing list to download our Cheat Sheet below as a quick-reference resource to help you in practice sessions, rehearsals or whenever you need it.
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