Relative Major/Minor Concept

Hey guys,

I know the holiday season is kicking in, so I decided to put up a post for all those guitarists looking for quick improvement in a short time period. Don’t get me wrong I’m not telling you to take short-cuts, but with the parties and all festivities coming up, all you guitarists out there might want to kick things up from the old minor pentatonic which all your friends have heard you play on. So I put up this lesson on the relative major/minor concept, which will surely turn a few heads with the new sounds you generate from this.

It’s simpler than it sounds and it will give you a major pentatonic without having to learn new shapes and what not.

As I mentioned earlier, I won’t do an I deep analysis, but teach you the basic (most important) points, which will propel your skills leaps and bounds.

When you hear a progression on the key of C for example, your first instinct is to plug in the minor pentatonic, but this gets boring after a while. Thus, after leaving a slight gap or a breather in the solo, you can switch to the major pentatonic which sounds happier and cheerful. If it’s a rather ‘sad’ chord progression or song it will sound ‘hopeful’ so to speak.

All you have to do is play the same shape of the minor pentatonic but with the root of the scale on the low E three frets back (or with the pinky of your fretting hand on the root of the minor pentatonic, same either way). If you consider the key of C progression, the relative major of the C minor is the same shape starting with the root 3 frets back.

You may ask isn’t that the A minor pentatonic? I say why of course, in this regard it can be a C major pentatonic as well as it has all the same notes as the more complex scale, but with the same sound. Thus, your usual licks can be applied due to the same scale shape.

The same concept can be used with chord in a rather opposite way. If you need a chord that sounds good with an A minor chord, using the concept you can use the C major scale.

Hope you enjoyed this lesson. Have fun with it. Comment on anything below.

Visal Pinto.