Paul Davids and Dweezil Zappa talk Pentatonic

[Verne Bunsen]

Paul and Dweezil are both gifted players and natural teachers, and in this great video they manage to take a very refreshing and interesting look at that most abused of topics: the minor pentatonic scale.

I enjoyed it. You might too.

 

[Hodgo]

Wow you can tell from the first lick Dweezil is wayyyyy outside the common pentatonic tropes. Very cool video.

I always thought the little pentatonic section in Peaches En Regalia sounded very fresh

 

[Bob Hoover Ross]

I haven't watched the video yet, but are they talking about superimposing pentatonic scales over chords other than their root?

That was something I picked up from John Scofield (who probably picked it up from Michael Brecker) and it totally revitalized my appreciation for pentatonics. Previously whenever I would hear (or play), for example, A minor pentatonic over an A tonal center, I couldn't escape the feeling that I was hearing something remedial ...because it all reminded me of what I sounded like when I was 14 years old and taking boring, simplistic guitar solos. The sound of an X pentatonic scale over an X chord is uninteresting to me because it just sounds like sucking, no matter how facile the player is.

But change one of ^^^those Xs to Y or Z, and suddenly the world's your oyster.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

I haven't watched the video yet, but are they talking about superimposing pentatonic scales over chords other than their root?

That was something I picked up from John Scofield (who probably picked it up from Michael Brecker) and it totally revitalized my appreciation for pentatonics. Previously whenever I would hear (or play), for example, A minor pentatonic over an A tonal center, I couldn't escape the feeling that I was hearing something remedial ...because it all reminded me of what I sounded like when I was 14 years old and taking boring, simplistic guitar solos. The sound of an X pentatonic scale over an X chord is uninteresting to me because it just sounds like sucking, no matter how facile the player is.

But change one of ^^^those Xs to Y or Z, and suddenly the world's your oyster.

That is not exactly the subject of the video, but it is a huge thing to learn and I remember when I learned it too! My instructor had me drilling on chord scales and associated modes and then showed me how applying the major / minor pentatonic patterns over the other major / minor chords of the harmonized scale produced pentatonic scales that were still diatonic but combined different notes. Mind blown!