Bob Murnahan's Dominant Pentatonic Course....A "Major" Discovery

Paleo

Student Of The Blues
This course was mentioned in another thread, so realizing I have it I thought I'd better go back and revisit it.

Those who are into mixing the Major and minor sounds will appreciate what I "discovered".

Here's the deal.

Bob defines the Dominant Pentatonic scale as the Major Pentatonic with a b7 replacing the 6. What Griff might call "bluesifying" the Major Pentatonic. It has all the notes of a 9th chord arpeggio. (1 2 3 5 b7)

So I thought that was kinda the flip side of what Griff calls the Pentatonic 6 scale, which is adding the 6 in place of the b7 in the minor pentatonic scale. (What Steve Trovato uses in Voodoo Blues.) (1b3 4 5 6)

If you're thinking one step ahead of me, the next thing Bob talks about is playing the Dominant Pentatonic from the minor root and getting what he calls the Minor Pentatonic with an added 6. (1 b3 4 5 6) (Countryfying the minor scale?)

You guessed it. It's the same thing as Griff's Pentatonic 6.

So the Dominant Pentatonic and the Pentatonic 6 are the same scale, just starting from the Major and minor root. Exactly the same way the Major and minor pentatonic/blues scales are the same just from different root notes. Modes, anyone?

So now I can add the Dominant Pentatonic and the Pentatonic 6 (which Griff discussed during the November challenge and elsewhere) to the Major and minor Pentatonic and the Major and Minor Blues scales and all the other scales that can be used over a blues progression.

(I'm just adding them to the list. I sure don't know how to use them all effectively. But that's the goal.)

It's also a further example of how everything is related and how it all ties together; scales, chords, arpeggios and modes.

The name of the game: "Options" or maybe "Variety".

Attached is a list Griff sent out shortly after introducing Modes Unleashed.
 

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Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
What's interesting is that, I've never heard of, nor used, the way Bob looks at it. And I thought I'd pretty much seen it all.

So that goes to show you just how many different ways there are to look at the same notes.

If you look at the Pentatonic 6 (1, b3, 4, 5, 6) starting from the 4, it's a 9th arpeggio.

So A Pent 6 - A C D E F#, is the same as D F# A C E which is a D9 arpeggio.

That's why I love the sound, I can go from A minor pent to A pent 6 when the IV chord comes and it fits right in!

Of course, then I started looking at it more as a D9 arpeggio which gave rise to "blues-i-fying" the 3rd (from Chord By Chord Blues Soloing) and now I tend to look at it more that way... but I had to go through the process.

Also, now I use the Pent 6 as a substitute for the Jazz Melodic Minor over altered dominant chords - now that's an ear twister ;)
 
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