pentatonic scale passing tones
Pentatonic scale passing tones have been a mystery to me. Actually, make that any kind of passing tones on the guitar. Like I have written before, so much of this music theory stuff goes right over my head. In any case, I have been working on some of the pentatonic scales for a long time. I think it is fun, and it is really pretty easy to pick up the guitar and work on these scales whenever I have a few minutes.
In any case, I figured these passing tones would remain another guitar mystery for me for a long time… hoping that one day it would all be clear. Well, I suppose that’s what happened… because in my guitar lesson last week I was screwing around playing some pentatonic leads while my instructor played rythm… and I screwed up and played a bad note. Or I thought I did… but my instructor Tom told me it was a passing tone. I guess I played one without even realizing what it was.
So this is the deal with passing tones (and this works for the pentatonic scale - but I bet it works for other scales as well.) If you play other notes that are in between the notes of the scale… but you play them quickly and don’t stop or dwell on them, then you are basically OK. I think there are specific notes that are good passing tones, and a bunch of these make up the “blues scale"… but Tom is pretty relaxed (if it sounds good, then it is good!)… and he said that you could probably throw in just about any note and it would be OK as a passing tone.
Another part of this is playing swing rythm… but that is all for another day.
File under: pentatonic scale, lead guitar, passing tone