The minor pentatonic scale is the most used scale for soloing and it is used in a wide variety of music styles like pop, rock, country, metal, blues and more. It’s a great scale because it’s fairly easy to play which makes it a perfect beginner scale for soloing, but it also has the functionality to develop, expand, and improve your skills to high levels of advanced playing.

Once you know how to play the minor pentatonic / blues scale and how to use it for soloing purposes, you want to know over what chord progressions you can play the scale. There are a few ways to go about this.

Let’s dive in!

MINOR KEY CHORD PROGRESSION

Like the natural minor scale, you can also use the minor pentatonic scale to solo over a song or chord progression in a minor key. We will use the chords derived from the natural minor scale to build your minor key chord progression.

Here’s the formula to find the chords to your progression:
I=minor, ii=dim, III=major, iv=minor, v=minor, VI=major, VII=major

For instance, if you want to use an A minor pentatonic scale to solo over a song or chord progression in the key of A minor you start with filling in the notes of the A natural minor scale to the formula.

For example:
A natural minor scale (A Aeolian mode) = A B C D E F G
Formula for finding the chords = minor – dim – major – minor – minor – major – major
Chords for the progression: Am – Bdim – C – Dm – Em – F – G
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