Pentatonic Scale Guitar Chord Harmony Chart

To prepare you for this article refer to the post categories of Theory and Technique that contain the articles named Fret Finger Placement, Interval Theory, Understanding Major Scale Modes.

The Pentatonic Scale Guitar Chord Harmony Chart. How chords relate to the A Minor Pentatonic Scale Modes. The Penta name stands for 5 notes and this scale was originated from early music cultures in China, Polynesia and Africa. This scale is used in a lot of modern music (Blues, R&B, Rock & Jazz) and it is one of the easiest scales to solo in. The intervals in the scale come from a lot of popular common chords that are used in modern music. It is a wide interval scale made up of (1 whole steps – 3 frets wide) and (1 1/2 steps – 4 frets wide).

I put together a guitar pentatonic scale chart for chord harmony to the five modes of the A Minor Pentatonic Scale. This guitar pentatonic scale chart shows the scale to chord interval formulas that match by column for each scale mode degree. The top row Roman Numerals are the scale mode degree for each column. In music the lower case represents minor and upper case is major. The notes row is each note of the scale. The A Minor Pentatonic Scale row is the name of each mode with their interval formula in brackets. Below that on the left column are all rows for the related chord types. Each column with a chord name and a formula in brackets has a relationship match to the scale formula for that column. This guitar pentatonic scale chart is great way to find chord progression orders for song ideas in the A Minor Pentatonic Scale.

The guitar chord diagrams below show how the guitar chords fit into the Pentatonic scale shapes. Scales and chords both have a shape symmetry. We guitar players have these shapes usually memorized and etched into our minds. First, we learn the chords and in time we learn the scales. Our ears are guided by these shapes or the other way around. It doesn’t hurt to see how these chords fit into the scales and all the note that make the chords which are arpeggios.