Pentatonic misprint or am I missing something??

[chiplexic]

I don't pretent to be a theory monster. But I notice in an older bass book this Pentatonic lesson seemed off. I always knew a Major Pentatonic scale to be 1,2,3,5,6. This book has it 1,2,4,5,6 ?? The book is "Improvising Rock Bass" by David C. Gross 1985. Please enlighten me.

[phektus]

Looks like the 4th mode, but I'm not (never) sure

[Stereo Joe]

Actually, the photocopy is blurry, the bottom line of the bass staff is hard to see. The notes are CDFGA.

Not the major pentatonic as I know it, but it is a pentatonic scale (5 notes...)

Originally Posted by kesslari

The notes shown are A, B, F, G, A.
That would be 1, 2, b6, b7, plus 8).
That's a 4 note scale (pentatonic is 5 plus the repeat of the root - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, plus 8)

dunno what it's called.

[Jim Carr]

Originally Posted by Stereo Joe

Actually, the photocopy is blurry, the bottom line of the bass staff is hard to see. The notes are CDFGA...

+1

F G A C D is F major pentatonic. Modes of major or minor pentatonic are, IMHO, trivial. So this "mode" is still to my ears just F major pentatonic.

[chiplexic]

Originally Posted by Stereo Joe

Actually, the photocopy is blurry, the bottom line of the bass staff is hard to see. The notes are CDFGA.

Not the major pentatonic as I know it, but it is a pentatonic scale (5 notes...)

Yes the bottom lines are blurred. If you look further down the measure they are all accounted for. I guess I did a bad job scanning and sizing. This is from the very first page of the writers intro on Pentatonic scales. So it's not like he's moving deep into the topic and showing funcky variations. I imagined it was suppose to be a C Major pentatonic scale.

OK...so at least it's not me,it's obviously wrong . So I've actually found a reason to be glad I neglected learning my scales back in the 80's now!! since it would have been from this dud book.

[Freddels]

It's an F Maj Pentatonic scale starting on C.

[Fergie Fulton]

Since pentatonic scales are five note scales you have to remove two notes from a typical eight note scale. Since the starting and the finishing notes are the same that gives you seven notes in the scale, take out two and that leaves you with five. In each of the seven classic scales you have two intervals that are semitone and the rest are tones.
If you remove the semitone intervals to create a pentatonic scale with no semitone intervals, you create a anhemitonic scale and thats what i believe you have here.
Pentatonic scales that have semitone intervals are called hemitonic scales. Both forms of these scales are transposible, but the one you show in the OP is not clear and it look like someone has written some notes on it transposing it from minor to reletive major.

[Jim Carr]

To me, it is unambiguously F major pentatonic.

The fact there are no semi-tones is rather obvious and only relevant IMHO, in that the mode of the scale is less significant it there are no semitones. It is probably not possible, and certainly not significant to demonstrate music that uses Major or Minor pentatonic in modes. YMMV, etc.

[slybass3000]

Yes it is a F major Pentatonic or D minor Pentatonic starting on C,


Sly

[mambo4]

technically, Its Fmaj/dmin pent as mentioned.

I've seen this kind of pentatonic used in blues ..it's one my dad taught me for guitar solos. I always sort of looked at it as a "note -bending scale" where the notes are sort of arranges to be bent into the next pitch 2n-3rd, 6th-b7th.

[20db pad]

Unless I'm missing something, the scale pictured is a "pentatonic in C", which infers that the root note is C. There, I'd expect to see the notes C D E G A which is the major pentatonic, or the minor pentatonic, C Eb F G Bb.

Titling the example in the book as a F major pentatonic starting on C is correct, but the example isn't labeled as such. The clear label as to whether the scale pictured is major or minor is also missing. This could be very misleading and confusing to a new student. If a less experienced player presented this book to me and asked me about the example, I'd simply say it was wrong and explain it as I have above.

[chiplexic]

Originally Posted by 20db pad

Unless I'm missing something, the scale pictured is a "pentatonic in C", which infers that the root note is C. There, I'd expect to see the notes C D E G A which is the major pentatonic, or the minor pentatonic, C Eb F G Bb.

Titling the example in the book as a F major pentatonic starting on C is correct, but the example isn't labeled as such. The clear label as to whether the scale pictured is major or minor is also missing. This could be very misleading and confusing to a new student. If a less experienced player presented this book to me and asked me about the example, I'd simply say it was wrong and explain it as I have above.

Yes, that's pretty much where I'm coming from. Seems like a major blunder by the editor in this book. I probably got it from the discount bin at the music store back in the 80's . I'm just glad it wasn't this book I used when learning Pentatonic scales.

They only cover Pentatonic scales breifly and never mention whether it's major or minor. But show how it can be used in modes like a major scale (which was taught earlier in the book). Then go on to display this using the 1,2,4,5,6 of the C scale.

[Fergie Fulton]

Originally Posted by Jim Carr

To me, it is unambiguously F major pentatonic.

The fact there are no semi-tones is rather obvious and only relevant IMHO, in that the mode of the scale is less significant it there are no semitones. It is probably not possible, and certainly not significant to demonstrate music that uses Major or Minor pentatonic in modes. YMMV, etc.

I agree with it being in F its just the way its shown. Back in the days when this information was taught i was given a "blues scale" of which applied to the example here is the scale taken on the 5th which in this case is F so the scale from start to finish as an example of a blues scale he would have been taught, the same as me back then would be
F-G-G#-A-C-D-F-G-G#-A
so take out the semitome interval to make it anhemitonic scale and there are your notes. The fact that the OP asks the question about pentatonic scales structure, i would feel it is relevent to point out the construction and the modes so they can explore for themselves, sorry if that made it seem confusing but it is relevent. As for the original example, i'd say not wrong but not right. LOL, IMO.

[Jim Carr]

I understand. I had a theory teacher in College (eons ago) who claimed that the blues scale used a lowered "6th degree." He had obviously had never listened to the blues with the slightest (aural) understanding of what he heard.

[Fergie Fulton]

Originally Posted by Jim Carr

I understand. I had a theory teacher in College (eons ago) who claimed that the blues scale used a lowered "6th degree." He had obviously had never listened to the blues with the slightest (aural) understanding of what he heard.

LOL???

[bassyeah]

next book!... throw this one away