Are pentatonic modes truly used?

[squirefan01]

I have been taking music lessons (all theory) with a guy that I consider to be pretty good, for about 5 months now. We have been going through modes lately and he had a little section on pentatonic modes, which he said were really pretty useless. His thought is that the term is used all the time but that is not really what players are playing. I wanted to get some more opinions about this.

I had never even heard the term until he brought it up a few weeks ago, but since then I have seen things in CD reviews that refer to this.

The latest, from a new Steve Ray Vaughan CD, "Solos, Sessions & Encores"...

"Vaughan contributes teeth-baring pentatonic solos to Lonnie Mack's "Oreo Cookie Blues" at Atlanta's Fox Theatre in 1986..."

Can somebody define what this really means? It is just a buzzword used by non-musicians? If pentatonic modes are useful, how can I incorporate them as a bass player, and practice them?

Thanks,

-Greg

[tennis_nick]

The pentatonic scales are widely used in Rock and blues music.

I don't know what he's talking about them being useless, he might feel they're overplayed and getting tiring, but thats an opinion of his, not a fact.

you must know the 2 basic pentatonic scales (which are just 5 not scales)

Major 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 6

Minor 1 - b3 - 4- 5 - b7

The mixing and matching goes a long way, they both fit in the blues genre depending on the song, You'll notice players like Clapton going back and forth between minor and major pent scales, as well as just adding a major note somewhere in there... It's cool to me that both scales can be used regardless of the chord being major or minor.

In bass playing, I use the minor pent alot for little vamps here and there, but it's easy to overdo! good luck!

[squirefan01]

I don't think it's a single scale itself that he thought was useless.

As we go through modes, like modes of the Major Diatonic Scale (where the order is Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Myxolydian, Aeolian, Locrian), we accept the upward shifting by one from the Ionian to get the other scales in that order. If we start with a Major Pentatonic scale (1-2-3-5-6 as you said), we are skipping the 4th & 7th. Once you start that same shifting through the modes of the Major Pentatonic scale from the base, you end up with useless modes, that often skip important notes like the 3rd or 5th.

So as I contimue to work on playing modes of a base scale, his point was that starting with major or minor diatonic scales are worthwhile but not the pentatonic.

[tennis_nick]

PErsonally, I say the best method is to learn your diatonic scales first and skip over the pentatonics.

If you get too comfortable with the pents too quicky, you won't feel a need to advance (big problem with alot of people)

learn to mix it up with all the diatonic modes, then learn the quick melodic part. you'll be mixing and matching before you know it

[jdogric12]

Check out Charly's thread "Lessons."

A lot of people throw the word around "pentatonic" without a concrete definition or meaning. It is easier to learn and solo with, but it's not really a complete "scale." It's just the five strongest notes of a diatonic scale. See Charly's thread.