Learning pentatonic scales will enable you to quickly have something under your fingers that you can play. Jason davis music lesson overview a standard lesson will last 30 minutes and will consist of 4 basic areas. The scale can be us ed very effectively in other ways, too. Heres the link to get the downloads mentioned in the video.
This collection of patterns serves as a resource of practice material to improve your technique with the pentatonic scale in all keys. Students will strengthen and learn to do this in the various styles of jazz and contemporary music. Its a sign of the kind of tremendous help that people get on this forum. Notice how we play down to the lowest note on our saxophone that is still in the scale, and then back up again to finish on f. Blues saxophone improvisation with simple 5 note scales. First, im looking for a website on pentatonic scales for practice. Concert bb is a good one c for tenor and soprano, g for alto and baritone learn the 5 notes and memorize the scale. Tenor saxophone scales major and minor flashcards quizlet. Print and download in pdf or midi pentatonic scales excercises. And if you were looking for just the minor scales instead, here is the saxophone minor scales guide. Instruments from ethiopia to indonesia are tuned to certain pentatonic scales.
Concert bb is a good one c for tenor and soprano, g for alto and baritone learn the 5. In this exercise we play our major pentatonic scale over the entire range of our instrument up and back down again. It is easy to create and to use some decades before, some musicians use to earn millions just playing this s. Saxophone pentatonic scales major and minor saxstation. I gig with several bands around the world for most months in a year. They function well because they are simple and continue reading. Minor 3rd, whole step, whole step, minor 3rd, whole step. The minor pentatonic scale is a mode of the major pentatonic scale. A minor pentatonic scale consists of 5 different notes.
I dont know if this post is in the right category, but lately, ive been introduced to pentatonic scales. On this page i will show you the easiest way to derive major and minor pentatonic and blues scales from any major scale. For our purposes, all examples in template a use the minor pentatonic scale format. The example below shows how to play pentatonic exercise 1 in the key of f. This creates a distinctly different sound for the new scale. Basic pentatonic lick that moves by tritone and is great. Heres a fun exercise using minor pentatonics and intervals. Printable scales written for the saxophone, including major, melodic minor, harmonic minor, natural minor and chromatic below are both printable pdf and html links to all the major, minor and chromatic scales for saxophone. Chromatic and pentatonic scales will be a large part of our typical warm ups and. You may find these playalongs useful for practicing major scales, major pentatonic scales, diatonic triads or other exercises. Hey, im troy roberts and today were going to talk about pentatonic scales.
Play popular song melodies without the need for sheet music. This book is written with the tenor sax in mind but can be used by any instrument including the voice. Im playing this pattern on a bb tenor saxophone so it will sync well on trumpet. Blues scales for saxophone jason justice saxophone teacher. Sep 17, 2002 it is also useful to use the major pentatonic major blues scale, once again to formulate some nice licks rather than being used in its entirety as a scale. Oct 09, 2019 if you listen to popular music, youve heard the pentatonic scale. Starting the c major pentatonic scale on the 6th note of the. This pdf contains the diagrams for all the major and minor pentatonic scales in all keys for guitar in standard tuning.
Ive played the alto and then the tenor saxophone for close to a decade now. The way a pentatonic scale is built or where it derives from is from. Its history and influence on those cultures and their music is significant. The pentatonic scale is a fivenote scale that is deeply rooted in the folk music of diverse and ancient cultures around the world. Pentatonic scales have found their home in the hearts of jazz, blues, and. All the scales for the tenor sax i have to truly commend those of you who actually put some time into responding to this post. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Blues pentatonic scale exercises sax on the web forum. Jeshurun for a chromatic scale, you just start on one note and go up and down chromatically.
Minor pentatonic scales to introduce a novice guitar player to the world of rock music requires that he learn a series of scales, which we can call the tools of the trade. Its a very useful and versatile scale to know and its where you should start your blues saxophone improvisation studies. The major pentatonic scale on alto saxophone what is it. A jazz players perspective as well as a new self published ebook slick licks that stick. We have just limited ourselves to the pentatonic scale to begin with. Or maybe you feel like you are playing the same stagnate licks again and again. Free pentatonic scale patterns downloads for saxophone easy pentatonic lick for saxophone the concept i focus on the most here at bettersax. And if you were looking for just the minor scales instead, here is the saxophone minor scales guide as the name suggests, a pentatonic scale only has five notes. I like to identify blues scales in two forms, a major blues scale and the more traditional minor blues scale. Saxophonist tony lakatos shares his musical journey and the importance of attitude best.
As with major and minor scales, the minor pentatonic scale derives from the major pentatonic scale. Major and minor pentatonic scales avoid significant harmonic dissonance by adverting this tritone. They are improv, technique, ear training and history. Note that although both scales can be used over one key, this scale contains the. All the scales for the tenor sax sax on the web forum. Download the pdf sheet music below and sign up for my free play sax by ear crash course to. Just because you practice scales, chords, patterns, and exercises doesnt mean you will sound stiff and mechanical, or that you will.
One octave major and minor scales tenor saxophone boltz bands concert c major d major 7. Some pentatonic scales contain so many contiguous small. Click the links below to download the exercises in much more readable pdf format. A minor pentatonic contains scale degrees 1, b3, 4, 5, and b7. The new brancher tsg tenor saxophone has incredible response.
Play sax by ear using the 5 notes of the pentatonic scale better. Its its relative minor, so we can find this by starting on the 6th of the major scale degree or the last note of the major pentatonic scale. This jazz lick is great practice for slipping out of and back into any minor key you are soloing in. In the context of modal music it is much better to think of each mode as a scale in its own right, not relative to a major scale. So concert bb is c on tenor sax, concert f is g on tenor sax, etc. The 2 lessons above and the book are a fantastic combination i started playing saxophone as a teenager in my grammar school band and quickly became addicted to the sax. Just do a search for pentatonic scales in the upper right search bar of this page and the lessons will come up. A set of pentatonic scale exercises to supercharge your. So you take the notes from the major scale and play the root, 2nd, third, fifth, sixth. If you want to play pentatonic scales on tenor sax, to get from concert key piano, guitar, etc to bb the key that tenor and soprano sax are in you need to go up a whole step. Start studying tenor saxophone scales major and minor.
Saxophonist tony lakatos shares his musical journey and the importance of attitude. A pentatonic scale has five notes in the key of c, c, d, e, g, a. The pentatonic scale is perhaps our most versatile collection of notes for improvising and playing melodically. In this guide i want to discuss major pentatonic scales for the saxophone if you were looking for just the major scales, here is the saxophone major scales guide. Im going to be demonstrating on tenor sax so ill be playing my c majora minor pentatonic scale. This is a very useful series of exercises for building your chops and acclimating your ear to different. Play major minor pentatonic scales saxophone lessons youtube.
Improv improvisation is the art of composing music on the spot. A minor pentatonic scale uses exactly the same notes, starting on a of the scale, creating a different intervallic scale structure. Its not the easiest thing, along with playing without music. Blues pentatonic scale exercises ive recently found the book the blues scales essential tools for jazz improvisation by dan greenblatt, and it is a great resource for pentatonic blues. These pentatonic scale patterns are also meant to be used in improvised solos as starting. In other words, pentatonic 326 contains all of the. Both of these scales can be used in blues songs, pop songs, funk, swing, jazz, and rock music.
Just like these are relative major and relative minor scales, a minor pentatonic scale, if we use the relative minor, uses exactly the same notes as the relative major pentatonic scale starting on the relative minor note. Second, i was introduced to pentatonic scales to learn how to play music with using pentatonic scales only. Be sure to practice the other 10 keys in this manner as well. This is a basic super hip minor pentatonic side slipping lick where i move by tritone every bar.
This means that it uses the same note as the major pentatonic scale, but the tonic note for the scale is different. For this chapter we will be considering minor pentatonic only. Sax lesson bebop scales paul williamson tenor sax learn to play saxophone and sax technique. This is a real public domain lick and can be used in all styles of music. Nov 07, 2018 as with major and minor scales, the minor pentatonic scale derives from the major pentatonic scale. In this book was a chart depicting the 5 pentatonic scale modes started from each of the 12 notes of. There is a major pentatonic scale and a minor pentatonic scale. You can get more diagrams in the tuning of your choice by using my interactive web app here.
Memorize the pentatonic scale we all do do, re, mi, but you have got to find the other notes yourself. Cs relative minor pentatonic scale, a minor pentatonic, begins on the 6 th scale degree of the major pentatonic scale shown above. For example, in relation to an abmin7 chor d, this useful pentatonic contains all of the notes that are outside of the chord and the scale that is usually associated with it, the ab dorian scale. Army blues, and leads his own small group that plays acoustic and electric jazz. If you were looking for the minor pentatonic scales, here is the saxophone minor pentatonic scales guide. Learn this easy pentatonic lick for saxophone or any instrument by ear. Aug 25, 2009 some people seem to be able to memorize the bluesjazz patterns by flatting this and sharping that, etc. This is also great for command of your instrument and really getting those fingers moving. Jazz improvisation pentatonic power drill five scales.
It can however be useful to equate a mode to its parallel major or minor, ie the one with the same root note. All 12 of the major pentatonic scales are provided in the pdf along with their relative minor partner. If you want to learn the major pentatonic scale on saxophone, check out this quick video tutorial to show you what it is, how to play it and how you can learn the building blocks of the major. In this case, thats e, so weve got the g major pentatonic being g, a, b, d, and e. It really simple, actually, once you get the hang of it. This article was written by guest contributor, bobby stern, a long time professional saxophonist, jazz player, educator, bari woodwinds endorser and author of the melodic minor handbook. Over the centuries, the pentatonic scale has found its way. Got this question from jeshurun yesterday about scales. The most important of these are both major and minor pentatonic. We can create 5 distinct modes from any pentatonic scale, one for each note of that scale. It has the root, minor third, fourth, fifth, and lowered 7th relative to a major scale. As there are 12 major keys, there are also 12 distinct major pentatonics. Or you can start with the beginning improvisation series for tenor sax and that will get you started with the scales and improvisation.
If you play alto youre going to be playing your g majore minor pentatonic scale. How to practice pentatonic patterns for improvisation youtube. And when used in the right places, a very hip sounding tool. The blues scale and minor pentatonic scale are similar. In this lesson i teach you how to learn this easy pentatonic scale lick on saxophone. And it is not hard to discover the reason why everybody uses and abuses of this scale. Oootje on a set of pentatonic scale exercises to supercharge your technique, ear, and improvisation. Concert bb is a good one c for tenor and soprano, g for alto and baritone learn the 5 notes and memorize the scale right away. Some people seem to be able to memorize the bluesjazz patterns by flatting this and sharping that, etc. Download the pdf sheet music below and sign up for my free play sax by. Each of the five chapters focuses on 1 of the 5 patterns of the caged system.
It has a few pages of majorminor pentatonic lickspatterns, and a decent system for practicing them at least to use over blues changes. Since the instrument we have chosen is a learned device. They are the same 5 notes as the major pentatonic scale, but the tonic of the scale is a different note. Pentatonic patterns for improvisation sample preparatory exercises below is an example of what i call pentatonic exercise 1 in the key of c major. This pdf lesson includes a number of diminished scale patterns along with a discussion of the theory needed to understand the application of diminished scale material. A minor pentatonic is somewhat similar, starting on c, it would be c, eflat, f, g, bflat. If you want to play pentatonic scales on tenor sax, to get from concert key piano, guitar, etc to bb the. Jazz improvisation pentatonic power drill five scales from any note. This is often thought of as the scale built on the second degree of a major scale. Everything in this book is presented in the key of a minor so that you can see how it all relates together and so that you can begin to string licks together into larger ideas. Whether its jazz, rock and roll, or country, these scales are used in every style. Scales tenor saxophone moving through the circle of fifths by adding flats created by ken dahlin f major concert e flat major b flat major concert a flat major e flat major concert d flat major a flat major concert g flat major enharmonic to f sharp major.