How To Make Progress Today with G Minor Scale

How to make progress today with G minor scale will help you build on what you learned in the G major and the G major pentatonic scales in our last lesson. To encourage learning to play melodies along with songs, the following scale to learn is G minor. We will learn two versions of this scale also: minor and pentatonic.

G minor pentatonic contributes to many genres of music, like Jazz, Classical, Reggae, and some Rock music. It can build chords by repeating a set of notes. G minor is the standard tonic scale for the key of G major. Bb major is the relative major scale to G minor. It consists of the notes G, A, B, C, and D. It can build chords in traditional music and can be the starting point for other scales and chords. This is how to make progress today with G minor scale.

The G minor pentatonic scale contains notes of the G minor scale. It consists of one note, the G, and five notes of the G minor pentatonic scale, the A, B, C, and D. This scale is a favorite players use to solo over chords built on the notes of the G minor pentatonic scale and is a common starting point for other pentatonic scales.

Compare G minor scale and G minor pentatonic scale

In the G minor guitar scale, you can hear the difference easily from the G major scale between intervals 3, 6, and 7. G minor is the relative minor of Bb so it has two flats. Some describe this difference between major and minor as a sad sound.

The G minor pentatonic scale is based on the G minor scale but is missing some notes. Just 5 notes are played but this enhances its usefulness for learning to play melodic phrases over chords. Having fewer notes to avoid, as if you were playing the full minor scale, makes it easier to try out for beginning players.

Notice there is no A note or E flat note in the G minor pentatonic scale. This leaves just five notes, aligning with the prefix “penta”, meaning “five”. The notes to play are G, Bb, C, D, F, and G.

Wrap Up

Use a metronome and practice slowly. There are many free apps online you can download to your phone. This is how to make progress today with G minor scale.