Hey Friend,

Did I give you heartburn with that thought, LOL? Onward...

People who go through a traditional music program in college can have a leg up on the rest of us. There are many realities about music that most guitar players end up stumbling upon accidentally - as opposed to having someone teach it to them. That's because so many good guitar players (and teachers) don't have a traditional education in music - they come by it the same way we do, learning from someone that didn't go to school for music.

I feel fortunate that I have taken correspondence lessons from a professional guitar player and teacher that earned a music degree. I learned a lot of things from him that I may never have realized on my own. That, or I would have been confused by some of the theories because I didn't have have any context to relate them to.

You don't know what you don't know. Simple truth.

But then you don't even know to go looking for what you don't know. Blissfully ignorant of the deeper intrigues of musical alchemy.

Earlier this week I sent you the A minor pentatonic scale in all its positions (modes). As the name implies, this is a minor scale. It is built off the A natural minor scale (remember, we dropped two notes from the minor scale to get the 5 note pentatonic).

What might not be as apparent is the fact that this minor scale has a relative. That relative is called the "relative major" pentatoinc scale. 

Truth is, every major scale has a "relative" minor scale to go along with it. 

Now here's the real kicker - the notes in both the major and minor scales are identical. That's why they're called relatives. The only thing that separates the two scales is the starting note. 

Nice, right? Doesn't do you much good, though, if you don't know how to figure out where the relative scale is. 

Ask, and you shall receive!

To figure out the relative key (and the scale you'll use), you just slide three frets up or down the string from your current root note.

For example, let's use our A minor pentatonic. The root note is A (fifth fret, sixth string). Because this is a minor scale (it's a minor key, too), we will want to slide up three frets to the eighth, which is a C note and the root of the C major key (and scale). 

If you look at the second A minor pentatonic scale pattern, you see it starts on the C note. Guess what - that pattern works as the major pentatonic scale!

Look again at your A minor pentatonic scale. The scale starts out on the A note. You could solo completely withing that pentatonic box with the A note as your root (tonic). But if you want to change the flavor or feel of the riffs you're playing, you could shift focus up to A minor's relative major scale - C major.

• Relative minor is three frets below (major sixth) the major key tonic note.
• Relative major is three frets above (minor third) the minor key tonic note.

Stepping outside the obvious key opens up a creative door that let's you start experimenting with how different notes can make your soloing efforts sound new. Instead of starting out a solo with the root note from the scale, try using it's relative key tonic as your root. Use the C note to begin rather than the A note. 

Or work backwards from a note in the middle of the scale. There's no rule saying a solo has to start on the root note. So mix it up and try different notes from both relative scales. You can't go wrong, since they both have the same notes. The difference is the context changes, so you can give a minor flavor to a song that might be in a major key. Play with it.

In Paul Gilbert's Rock Guitar School, he focuses a lot on musicality within the minor pentatonics, mainly because in Rock, many times songs are written in minor keys. But you aren't limited to just minor keys - you can and should use major keys, too. He goes over those, too. Learn more over at ArtistWorks.com.

Peace~

Dave