Ukulele Scales: Minor Pentatonic
July 2, 2008 · Print This Article
This week, I thought I’d go over the easiest scale around. It only has five notes in - as the ancient Romans amongst you will have already worked out. It’s also used almost exclusively in blues and rock music.
C Minor Pentatonic
The C minor pentatonic looks like this on the fretboard:
This in tab:
And sounds like this:
The minor pentatonic is a great scale to improvise with - particularly with bluesy songs. Here’s me playing around with the notes in this pattern.
C Minor Pentatonic Improvisation (MP3)
The end lick in that is easy to play and very effective. Here’s the tab of it:
D Minor Pentatonic
As with the major scale, the minor pentatonic pattern can be moved up the neck to fit with whichever key you’re playing in. Find the root note on the C string and start the pattern from there. For example, if you’re playing in the key of D minor, start the pattern on the second fret so it looks like this on the fretboard:
And this in tab:
F Minor Pentatonic
Similarly for F minor, you start on the fifth fret of the C string like this:
And this:
If you can get this scale under your fingers, next week’s scale - the blues scale - will be a doddle.
nice little tutorial……I love the blues and I love the uke….a great combination indeed!!!!
These scale tutorials are really useful. Love them
So cool, Woodshed. Now I know what I’ll be doing this afternoon!
I’m looking forward to your blues e-book- that still in the works?
I wanna be first in line.
todd & newbie: Glad you found them useful.
LonnaB: Yeah, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Very good. I was waiting for that kind of thing. Thanks again.
Whilst, of course, any ancient Romans stumbling across this corner of the interweb may well know how many notes constitute a pentatonic scale, I suspect an ancient Greek would work it out slightly more quickly, pentatonic being a word derived from Greek rather than Latin roots.
My grasp of the need to get out more is not always equal to my grasp of classical languages, but such is life.
I had always wondered what a pentatonic scale was and now I know! I had thought that it might just take some notes from the major scale but I notice that it doesn’t.
Anyway, I’ve already enjoyed twiddling away with little blues riffs tonight. Thanks for sharing, once again you have increased my musical knowledge!
maduke: You’re welcome.
Alf: I’m hanging my head in shame.
Jon: The major pentatonic has notes from the major scale and the minor pentatonic has notes from the minor scale. Is was going to write about the minor scale first. But I decided just to go ahead and give the people what they wanted.
I liked your improv- any chance of putting the tab for the whole thing? I know I should work it out or come up with my own but lack of skill is preventing me.
Thanks, Isaac. I’m working on a Ukulele Blues ebook at the moment and tab for this, or something like it, will probably turn up in there.
being new to the ukulele can you tell me if you are picking with finger or pick,regards mike
Mike - he’ll be using fingers, of this I am 99.99% certain.
Ukulele players, for the most part, tend not to use picks, Zach Condon of Beirut being an exception. The most common type of pick used with a uke is a felt one.
In general you will have greater versatility of sounds if you play with fingers that you just can’t get with a pick.
John is spot on. I hardly ever use a pick on the uke.