How to Play Guitar Modally Using only the Minor Pentatonic Scale
We’re going to get a little carried away today, but it’s going to be a fun ride, and you’ll end up with something terrific you can use to really turn some heads down at the ‘ol coffee shop (or lumberyard or whatever, idk, I am not a hipster).
This article is written for the intermediate/advanced guitar levels, but if you consider yourself a beginner, I encourage you to stick it out, because immersing yourself in the lingo is really the best way to pick it up for yourself.
But first, allow me to scare the cr@p out of you:
Put simply, a “mode” is just the act of starting and ending any scale on a note other than the root note.
The alignment of the strings on a guitar presents a special situation when working with modes.
I mean, you don’t want to keep saying to yourself, “Oh, I’m playing in A-Dorian, so I need to find the G-Major scale and then start at the second note” all the time. No, of course not. You’re already spinning a dozen plates at once — why add more?
What happens is that when you start and end the major scale on a different note than the root note, it basically becomes a whole new scale, complete with its own patterns and chords.
Let’s look at an example. Here’s the G-Major scale:
As you can see, I added a few notes from the next octave. Those will help demonstrate the next step. Which is this:
Say we were to start playing that scale from the “perfect 5th” — or the “D” note in this case. Then the same scale would look like this:
Notice it’s exactly the same notes as before, just now different ones are red.
Then what if we cleaned it up a little and only focused on the notes from the new root.
That may look a little funny to you, because you already know your major scales, and everybody knows the D-major scale looks like this:
So what have we done?!
Well, if you compare our new collection of notes with the existing D-Major scale that you already know, we’ve just done this:
That’s right, it’s just the regular old D-Major scale, but we’ve taken the 7th note, and flatted it by moving it back one fret.
“Why?” you ask?
That flatted seventh note changes the overall tonality of the D-Major scale, giving it a more bluesy, rock-n-roll kind of sound.
We like that
But how do we use it?
That’s a great question, and it comes up a lot. You’ll notice from that example that now, instead of being diminished like a normal 7th chord would be — our new 7th chord will be a major chord.
What that means, is that if you’re playing in a jam, and your root chord is D-major, and you accompany it with a C-major chord (instead of C-diminished), you’re playing in the “D-Mixolydian” mode!
And you can take advantage of that.
Technical Note: There’s a little more to it than that. The Mixolydian mode also has a major-third instead of a minor third. But we’re not tryna get bogged down in all that right now.
I’ve taken the opportunity to make you a roadmap of the entire D-Mixolydian scale across the first 12 frets of the neck:
You can play your D-C chord progression, and accompany it with just notes and chords from this configuration and it’s going to sound great.
But “great” isn’t good enough — we want “AWESOME”
Well, here comes the goods.
If you’ve made it this far, then I can pretty much guarantee that you’re already familiar with the “Minor Pentatonic” scale.
Let me refresh your memory:
What if I was to tell you that, quietly embedded in the D-Mixolydian scale we were looking at is not one, not two, but three separate instances of this exact pattern?
Would it blow your mind? If it doesn’t, then that’s how you know you’re still at the “beginner” level, because this is a pretty big deal.
Let me highlight them for you. Here it is starting at the fifth fret:
And here’s another one starting two frets over at the seventh fret:
And this next one can be played from either the 0-fret (the top of the neck) or starting at the 12-th fret (the Yummy Zone):
“But good ol’ u/crashdaddy, how is this the big ‘ol game-changer you promised us?!”
First, I never promised that. Second, I do promise that.
Here’s how this knowledge can make you up to 100x better than you are now:
You can already just noodle around aimlessly on the D-Mixolydian scale over, say, a D-C chord progression. Or any chord progression that uses chords from D-Mixolydian for that matter.
What you can do now is revitalize all those tired old pentatonic licks and phrases you’ve been leaning on all this time into some spicy new goodness. You can melt a whole new generation of faces.
Because now you can use existing tools in your guitar toolbox in exciting new ways. You can even play the same lick in each of those locations, and it will have a pleasant new tonality in each one.
And on top of that, eagle-eyed readers will have already noticed by now that the pentatonic extensions are also available. Not to mention the other pentatonic positions, for those who’ve learned it past the first one.
That’s right, for you advanced cats out there, you can also use your sophisticated stylings from all up and down the fretboard in various new and useful locations.
With tremendous effect.
What’s Happening Here
What’s going on is — by playing them this way, you’re adding spicy extensions to the existing chords in your progression — while not doing anything any differently than you’ve already been doing, just in different places.
For example, the extra “B” note is the 7th of the C-chord, that “G” note is the 4th of the D-chord and so on.
Using them the way you’ve already been playing them, but in this new context will open up vibrant and exciting new musical avenues for you to explore.
How Deep Does This Rabbit-Hole Go
This technique can be used when playing with any sort of modal chord progression. Just look up patterns that you are already familiar and comfortable with, and use them the way you already do, but in their new locations.
It’s just that simple.
Thank you for coming to my Shred Talk™ — now go melt some faces.
All fretboard diagrams courtesy of guitarscientist.com
