Ukulele For Geeks: Secrets of the Pentatonic Scales

ukulele for geeks secrets of the pentatonic scales ignite sydney ’09 christian crumlish mediajunkie.com @mediajunkie

An easy instrument to learn
Just four strings!
Punk as hell
Enthusiasm beats expertise
Learn a few chords (not from me)
Learn a few fingering patterns (yay)
???
Profit!!

Pentatonic Scales for the Win
Pentatonic means five tones
The black keys on a piano are a pentatonic scale
Every combination, even random ones, sounds good
Pentatonic scales can be used to accompany any song

Many songs use just 5 notes
My Girl
Under the Boardwalk*
Suicide is Painless
First There is a Mountain

Open strings
The open strings on a guitar are in a pentatonic scale
The open strings on a uke are in several pentatonic scales (as there are just four)
Thus “accidentally” hitting open strings is usually fine
The uke is basically “in C”

C maj pentatonic
C D E G A
To make it bluesy add Eb (aka D#)
C D (Eb) E G A

C min pentatonic
C Eb F G A
To make it bluesy add Gb (aka F#)
C Eb F (Gb) G A

Forget the note names
It’s all about the patterns, yo
Little dippers, all in a row
That one weird string interval
Find the root or key and the patterns “just work”
Make “big dippers” to go to big-boy scales

Cowboy Scale (C maj)

Little Dipper (C maj)

Little Dippers (C maj)

Little Blue Dippers (C maj)

Cowboy Scale (C min)

Blue Cowboy Scale (C min)

Little Dipper (C min)

Little Dippers (C min)

The Key
Dippers are movable
Whatever key a song is in, just find the relative dippers
You don’t need to know the key
Just fiddle around till it “locks in,” then follow the pattern up and down the fretboard

Big Dippers
Five notes often not quite enough
“ Under the Boardwalk” is hex atonic
Many songs are diatonic, etc.
So learn how to extend the little dippers into big dippers to make larger sales

Big Dipper (C maj)

Big Dippers (C maj)

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Ukulele For Geeks: Secrets of the Pentatonic Scales

by Christian Crumlish

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