Advanced Pentatonic Patterns Banjo

[Mike]

This is the discussion topic for the lesson Advanced Pentatonic Patterns Banjo. Please leave your comments or any questions you might have about the lesson here!

[Gordonegrant]

Hi Mike: Really enjoyed this lesson and am having fun playing with the various patterns. But here’s my question: I don’t fully understand why moving the pattern up the neck so that the root changes, (i.e., from G to A to B etc.) and using the same pattern in each case allows one to play freely in the key of G (or Em). Seems like moving the pattern results in accessing a different pentatonic (A, B, etc.). Does this “work” because you are following the 1,2,3, etc. of the G scale? And if that’s so, then presumably you could do the same by starting on an A root (in the down neck position) and then moving up accordingly, just making sure that you’re moving the appropriate distance in each case.

Hope this makes sense….

Gordon

[Mike]

Thanks for your question.

When you move up to the next pattern, the root note isn’t actually changing, that’s where you might be getting confused.

All you’re doing is starting on a different note of the scale.

So instead of going 1,2,3,5,6,1 (position 1) you’re going 2,3, 5, 6, 1, 2 (position 2), etc….

If you want to play the same idea with the A note being the root, you’d need to start with position 1 on the A so then you’re playing the A major pentatonic scale.

If you have any other questions let me know. Hope this makes sense.

– Mike

[sjadga]

Hi Mike

If you have a G-C-D chord progression, should you stay with G pentatonic for all chords, or switch to C and D pentatonic when those chords are being played?

Thanks for the lesson
Dave

[Mike]

When you’re first starting out I’d just stick to playing the G pentatonic scale over all the chords.

As you get more comfortable. You can start switching between scales as the chord changes.

More importantly would be highlighting the chord tones of each chord regardless of what scale you’re playing. So for a G, C D progression you’d have (G,B,D) (C,E,G) and (D, F#, A).

Playing the chord tones as the chords change will help spell out the changes and add another depth to your soloing.

[Author]

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