 Hi guys this is Jason here from Nathaniel and in this lesson let's learn how to create a melody given an existing chord progression using the pentatonic scales which we have available. So the pentatonic scales in music are five notes as the word pent seems to suggest. So we have two flavors we have like a major pentatonic flavor and a minor pentatonic flavor. So if I'm in the key of B flat major to build a pentatonic scale it's nothing but the root, the second, the third major third, five that means you skip the fourth. The pentatonic scale essentially will sort of hide away the notes which are considered as sort of tensions in a scale. So one, two, three, five, six, octave to add to that that means we ignore the four and the seven. So it'll be what was once this is B flat major will now be B. Those are the intervals as per the swaras and you could also just sing it a couple of times. So very pleasant scale it's also what I call the anything goes scale. You know you can use it pretty much over any chord progression like how guitar rock guitar players work they will just shred on that pentatonic scale as though literally the sky is the limit you know so they just keep playing over that scale and the B flat major pentatonic sounds great but you could also create a minor version of that which will be the G minor pentatonic. Okay so to build a G minor pentatonic what you do you start on G minor third this will work well on the G minor chord so root minor third okay perfect fourth perfect fifth minor seventh octave minor seven perfect fifth perfect fourth minor third back to root these are pretty much the notes of the B flat major chord B flat major pentatonic scale rather so what is just a different flavor. So remember we have two kinds of pentatonic the major pentatonic B flat major pentatonic and the minor pentatonic which is its relative minor as we say which is the G minor pentatonic a quick trick to form the minor pentatonic given the major pentatonic would be to just move up a sixth B flat C D E flat F G that's the sixth one six one major sixth and the major sixth will be the minor pentatonic equivalent fine so what can we do with this pentatonic scale let's take the chord progression again six four one B flat five which is F very popular chord progression as we already know I'm sure one and five so I have three kind of approaches to using the pentatonic scale while building melodies the first one is just sort of maths you just take patterns which you can form and just play those patterns start mechanically and I feel it'll gradually grow organically into something with a lot more feel and creativity so you can start with what am I doing I'm doing groups of threes you could consider that that's G B flat C B flat C D just in that pentatonic family G it works on pretty much on all the chord you can even go descending thirds just some patterns okay and if you add some rhythmic spice so now I have this lick created da na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na so you're just taking that same lick and starting it from different points so if you take you can do there from the D from C from D F G and it'll sound pretty much the same so if you take any lick on the pentatonic with a few notes you can actually transpose it by starting the lick on different notes and this can create a lot of patterns another way I like to use the minor pentatonic or the major or any pentatonic scale in general is to sing and play sing a phrase singing makes the whole process of composition of a melody very natural because you're singing without that filter of you know what do I do on the piano can I do it and whatnot you're singing so yeah try to learn a little bit of singing if you don't already because we all have like a free voice free free musical instrument right inside us so take care of it and learn learn a good decent amount of singing if you can if you get the chance so sing a phrase and then try to play back that phrase on the piano in which in which case it'll also train your ear it'll also improve your listening and your conversion ability from mind to body as we say so if I do see what happened there it was little tricky for me to play that melody that's because I sang it and by singing I don't care about how easy or difficult it will be on the piano I'm just singing freely because it's there's no filter while singing so now I have to do the puzzle of figuring out what I just sang on the piano let's try one more I quite like that and doesn't have to be exact it just has to sort of match and well if it if you want it to be exact then you have to work harder I like that and these melodies usually will continue for all the chords see works right quite a magical scale if you think about it you just had to come up with one tiny tune and just works with all the four chords right so singing and playing can be really helpful first sing then play sing the next tune play and then try to record all these ideas maybe on a cell phone so that you can go back to it later maybe you can't get it immediately so you take a break maybe the next day or little later you can try and match it on your respective instrument another thing you'd like to do with a minor pentatonic scale as I already hinted at while singing and playing is develop a very short phrase what we call as a motif okay and repeat that phrase and bank on that phrase and make sure that phrase works well for all the four chords of this chord progression and you've got yourself a pop tune you've got yourself a very very good selling tune because if that tune can survive all these four chords listeners are going to remember that tune right so if you take something like that small variations can be done something like or combine it with singing it'll really help so first off what have we done in this lesson how do we form our scales build the pentatonic which is a subset of the seven five out of seven pentamines five you have major pentatonic and you have minor pentatonic sort of like the anything goes scale it works on anything form it play it jam over it over these four chords which are very pop chords in this tutorial and use patterns mechanical patterns like groups of three to eventually become organic and make melodies that way use your voice sing and then play what you sing and push the limits push your technique and also train your year because your piano has to latch on to what you're thinking and singing and finally build short motifs and short phrases and make it a point that that phrase or that motive which you made works for the entire set of four chords and if it does you've got yourself a very very famous about to be famous melody okay so hope you guys found that lesson useful again this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music do consider subscribing to our channel if you haven't already share the music video share the video with all your music loving friends and do consider subs supporting us on our channels like Patreon and you will get access to a lot more content coming your way cheers