Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for musicians, students, and enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm very new to the music theory and I have started to write every single scale to my notebook but I come across this C major pentatonic scale and felt the need to ask how it can be written in the formula. I have this formula here with me but I am unsure whether it is correct?
The formula I attempted to create was C-D-D#-E-G-A-C.
As a formula, it may be better as 1,2,b3,3,5,6.Which actually translates to the same as that of the minor blues, but displaced by a minor third - 3 semitones. (Or, starting at note 6 from the above formula and making IT note no.1, the key note). This will then work for all keys. So, in your speak, it's C-D-Eb-E-G-A.
You can easily figure out the Major Pentatonic Scale by thinking of the black keys on the piano. If you start on F# the Major Pentatonic will have all the black keys on the piano.
F#-G#-A#-C#-D#
From there you can easily deduce the intervals between these notes and then apply them to any other note you want to build this scale on.
F#-G# = MAJ 2nd
F#-A# --> PERFECT 4th
F#-C# --> PERFECT 5th
F# D# --> MAJ 6th
Now you can use this information and apply it to any tone degree
C Major Pentatonic C - D - F - G - A
Ab Major Pentatonic Ab - Bb - Db - Eb- F etc.
