 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music and in this lesson we are going to explore the pentatonic scales. There are two of them or two main ones rather, the major pentatonic and the minor pentatonic. The main goal of this lesson is to teach you how to form the scale of course first of all the theory is very important and then in addition to that I am also going to look at a few ways to explore the scale further, improvise and tell a story using the scale okay first off the pentatonic scale is a very very popular scale be it the major pentatonic or the minor pentatonic they are used almost all the time to build the most catchy melodies you'll ever find and to also build the most iconic epic riffs you'll ever find right a melody is generally something you're going to play at the top end is if you're a pianist is going to be around middle C and beyond and a riff or a bass line is generally something you're going to play in the bass clef which would associate maybe a bass player or a guitar player at the lower strings doing okay so these two scales the major pentatonic and the minor pentatonic are great for riff building great for all sorts of things so in this lesson I'm keeping the goals very open in the sense that you can play or you can express the scale in any which way you want with suits and serves your musical requirements or your musical goals okay so make sure you stay tuned till the end of the lesson because there should be something for everyone and I'm going to try and scale it up from someone who's just about starting off the piano playing journey to someone who's already been playing for a while and wants to learn a little bit on improvisation so let's get right into it first let's look at the theory and forming the pentatonic scales super easy all you need to do is derive it from the parent scales which are going to be the major scale and the natural minor okay so let's look at it in the key of E the first thing you want to do is build E major right if you don't know it already root E and then F sharp G sharp A D C sharp D sharp E so the pentatonic scale is basically going to knock off a few of these notes actually more specifically two that'll make it pentatonic pentah in as I guess in a Greek language means five of something right so to build a five-note scale from a major scale which has seven notes you need to knock off how much to you get the maths right 7-2 equals 5 there we go so you go E F sharp G sharp and what we do with pentatonic is we knock off the 4 in this case it's the A skip that play the B E F sharp G sharp B got that skip I hope you can even cross your thumb in order to get there easily and now you go to the sixth C sharp do not play the D sharp not required go back to the octave E okay repeat up down e F sharp G sharp be C sharp E turn to swing right so as you can see it's already sounding very catchy right it has that ability so before we use it, let's also now look at the minor pentatonic scale. The minor pentatonic scale again is derived from the minor scale which has seven notes. So if I take the E minor scale, this is it. Again the minor scale will have a normal two, minor third, perfect four, perfect five, minor sixth, minor seventh, octave. That's your bigger seven note minor scale. Now in order to get the minor pentatonic scale, skip the two and skip the six. Okay, so major pentatonic scale, minor pentatonic scale. And you might be observing without me really saying it that I'm playing the root of the scale in my left hand. So that gives the scale context. Otherwise, you don't know why you're playing it really. So you need that bass, you need that harmonic drive to really give you the purpose of the melody. So let's now look at exploring the pentatonic scale and trying to tell a story using the scale. So if you observe, I've been playing the root in my left hand pretty much all the time. So if we change the roots, we are going to change the roots based on the parent scales. The parent scales are the major and minor. So if you do major pentatonic in the right hand, you explore over the major scale in the left hand. Okay, three notes which will work really well are the root E, the fourth A and the fifth B. Okay, so I'm literally just going up and down in the right hand. Okay, then maybe B, you can also do C sharp. So a nice little chord progression you could build could be that, you know, one, then a six, five, right? So one, what am I doing there? One, six, four, five, you can even do one, five, six, four, basically the pop progression, which is one, five, six, four in any manner you want could be actually expressed in your left hand over the major pentatonic scale. So again, to recap, the left hand is playing over the major scale in this case E major. And the right hand is playing on the more melodic or the more catchy scale, the five note scale, which is the pentatonic. So this is a great environment to kind of experiment and explore things on the piano. The left hand is just playing single notes, no need of chords at the moment, right? You can do a lot more with just these single notes in a rhythmic flavor, if you'd like. Okay, moving on, what about the minor pentatonic? Do the same thing, one, six, but this will be a six flat or a minor sixth because we are on the minor scale. So even though the minor pentatonic does not have a C, I remember what I told you, the left hand plays over the parent scale. So if it's minor pentatonic there, the left hand plays the minor scale here. If it's a major pentatonic there, the right hand, the left hand plays the major scale progression here. So the notes I'm choosing are E, C, D. D is like a seven flat that also works, makes the music very epic and rock sounding, maybe an A. Little bit on the finger ring, whenever you run out of notes, try to avoid playing the ring and the pinky too much because otherwise you're going to do all sorts of weird stuff with your hand. So cross it. When you know that this is the last note in your melody, then maybe you can use the pinky and the ring. And the pentatonic scale is pretty much a scale which is very singable. So I would always encourage you to maybe compose something with your voice and it will end up being a lot more catchy. For example, I'm on the minor pentatonic. So if I get that going, you could practice that on the E minor pentatonic and then the left hand could sort of take this melody to town, to kind of take it on a journey by just choosing notes of the minor scale. Maybe C, A. Doesn't sound monotonous, right? Even though it's pretty much the same tune, that's the power of the left hand. So singing is a very, very driving force. Let's try something with the major pentatonic. Okay. So with singing, you can really develop some really catchy music. And also remember when you're singing melodies, you're also singing it in a very natural rhythmic way. So your melody will definitely be a lot more catchy. And then you have this scale, which is really, really popular and sounds good and is used and practiced by pretty much all the cultures across the world. If you take traditional music from almost every part of the planet, it's going to have this scale somewhere in the middle or in the midst of things. So another great way to practice the pentatonic scale, which I found, which works for me is to take maybe three notes and develop like a little pattern around those notes, something like that, or keep it simple and look at it as a pattern. So if you do, that's E, G, A, the first three notes, then you could go the next three notes set, next three notes set and keep going up or maybe come down. Okay. And you got yourself a nice improv pattern going on there. Okay. So I'm just doing three down now. Something like that. And instead of doing, instead of making every note even, you can have gaps. You have a lick there. Right? If you're observing by this video, yeah, I'm kind of biased towards the minor pentatonic scale because I'm more of a rock music lover, if you will. So we use the minor pentatonic more in rock songs. Right. So now the last thing I'd like to leave you with, with respect to the pentatonic world is to also explore riffs in your left hand as a piano player. Okay. So if I just hold something ridiculously simple in the right hand, maybe a minor chord, E minor, right. And now, now you want to understand and formulate the pentatonic in your left. Okay. Okay. So if you're not getting the right hand, wait for a while. So if you do something low there, it can actually become the riff for your song, like a guitar player does, like an electric guitar player is always looking at making a riff. If you listen to bands like Nirvana or any rock band like Metallica, they pretty much are more riff focused rather than playing chords. So if you look at building riffs, again, this scale is awesome for that. You could do maybe played with both hands. Right. And then the right hand support with a chord or two could build something like that. Need some practice, of course, but you get the idea. Right, guys. So let's recap. We've looked at two of the most popular pentatonic scales in music, the major pentatonic and the minor pentatonic. How do we form the major pentatonic? You knock off the four and seven of the major scale. How do you form the minor pentatonic? You knock off the two and the six of the minor scale. Okay. Major pentatonic, minor pentatonic. And what how do we use this? First off, you could just enjoy the scale, play whatever you want or whatever you can in the right hand and try to move the melody. You know, take it on a journey by changing your left hand options. And the left hand comes from the parent scale, be it the major scale or the minor scale. Okay. Then we try to look at how to develop licks and phrases and patterns in the right hand. One trick as we observed was to sing. Sing something. It'll end up being very catchy and rhythmic and then voice it in the right hand. Okay. Then we looked at simple mathematical patterns like going in threes, you know, stuff like that, which can just build a riff, build a tune, build licks, build catchy phrases and so on. And then we ended our study with the left hand building these riffs to build something catchy and it'll pretty much always sound catchy, whichever hand you play it in, whichever genre you play it in, right? It's an incredible set of two scales, which sometimes is not mentioned often enough in a music theory class because we don't form this. We don't do that whole two to one building thing. We don't do the circle of fifths, sharps, flats. Well, why? Because this is a very, very natural scale. It's used by everyone. So sometimes when we are learning music, we tend to take this a little bit for granted, right? But this is the scale which makes pretty much all the pop songs click and all the pop songs create that global reach, if you will. Right, guys? Again, this is Jason here from Nathaniel. If you found the lesson useful, do make sure you subscribe to our channel, turn on the bell icon for notifications, share the video, like, comment, let us know if there's something else you'd like to learn. Cheers and I will catch you in the next one.