Transposing Scales Into Other Musical Keys
Ok, so what happens if you don't want to play pentatonic minor in the key of E ? Well, now we would have to transpose the scale into another key. Transposing simply means to move our scale, moving all of the positions together, to another key or root note.
If you wanted to play A pentatonic minor instead of E pentatonic minor, you would have to move the first position that starts with the low E note up 5 frets so that the first note of position 1 is the A note. All other positions would have to slide up the neck 5 frets also, so that their relation to each other is still the same. Naturally, anything that slides up past the octave (12th fret) will also appear at the bottom of the neck, as they are the same notes.
If you have already learned E pentatonic minor (and you should have if you are here) you can study the diagram below and you can see exactly what I am talking about. Our root note will now be A, and thats where the first position will start.
Notice that even the root notes are in exactly the same place in the positions as they were before, the only thing thats changed is we slid the whole thing up 5 frets.
You would now be playing "A pentatonic minor".
Recommended Books On The Pentatonics
Check out this great reference book for more information on the pentatonic scales and how you can use them to improve your playing. And purchasing this book from the link provided here helps to keep this site free for everyone!
Jazz Guitar Soloing Concepts : A Pentatonic Approach to Improvisation - Learn an entirely new way to improvise over jazz changes This hefty book/CD pack sheds new light on the old five-note scales that all guitarists know and love. The system is theoretically sound, easy to implement, and best of all, it's designed specifically for guitar. It will work with any chord progression - from simple to complex and, unlike other systems, there are no notes to avoid.
