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I was watching this new Aimee Nolte video on YouTube about Anticipatory Pentatonics and I am hung up by something she said and wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the matter. It starts around 7:00 and she says that guitarists “think in minor Pentatonics instead of major” and she loses me here. What does that mean? https://youtu.be/7gN7Y_ss5Q0

C major pentatonic; C D E G A
A Minor Pentonic: A C D E G

Pentatonic itself is neither major nor minor. This is the most ancient mode that existed for tens of thousands of years before the advent of major - minor concepts . Simply, today we are considering different scales in terms of major and minor; more precisely - whether they contain a major or minor chord from the first pitch.

That’s it then? Oh wonderful! Thank you so much. Much easier than I had imagined.

As a former guitarist I'll chime in. Her comment wasn't important, it was just an aside and not really worth mentioning. As the other posters have said, the same notes that comprise C major Pentatonic also comprise A minor Pentatonic and what separates them is how they are used....the intent by the person using them.

As a guitarist, I think that she's mostly right; if you were to say to a guitarist "play something using a pentatonic scale" they'd play something with a "minor tonality" rather than a major tonality simply because that's how they are used most of the time.

It's really nothing to get hung up on.

As Heptatonic scales, pentatonic scales also have "modes". A pentatonic scale has 5 modes. The 1. mode is called "major pentatonic" and the fifth mode "minor pentatonic". the remaining four modes are named by numbers.


PS
At 1:30 it seems that Nolte does not really has an idea about McCoy's pentatonic voicing structure (His 5-part voicings are mostly built up based on three different pentatonic scales layed one on top of the other. But maybe that's a different story to talk about.).

These voicings are Coltrane's ideas, not of McCoy Tyner . In any case, MCT said so at a master class in Jerusalem Academy of Music. As I understood (from 1969) that part of these chords - the result of vertically location of pentatonic scale pitches at the steps of diatonic scale (although single third can participate in these voicings - “So What” chord) , with rejection of use traditional tertian structures . Another part of voicings is the result of a heterophonic parallel movement of voices - which is typical for African multi-vocal singing ; which allows any pitches to be used in soprano , even chromatic .

you must be a lucky guy. :-)
Did McCoy mention how Coltrane named the hemitonic pentatonic which is involved in the chord building?
Some (i.e. Vincent Persichetti) call it Kumoi and others like Mark Levine call it In-sen.

It was, I think, in 1984, in a small classroom, where ten students of the jazz department were present. The first question was, of course, about harmony; and MCT answered: “I cannot say much about these chords; my theoretical baggage is conventional normal. Coltrane did all the theoretical work of innovation; he also showed me these voicings.”

ps Kumoi is Japanese pent. scale (and Coltrane played it) .

I know Coltrane played it but how did he call this particular scale?

In accordance with the book of Nicholas Slonimsky ,which was his second bible - scale number 1154, below Hira-Yoshi (my guess).

Hirajoshi = a b c e f (Persichetti, Twentieth-Century Harmony, Page 50)
Kumoi = d e f a b (Persichetti, Twentieth-Century Harmony, Page 50)

Kumoi is normaly used as the lowest voice in 5-part pentatonic chords.

So you do not know the book of Nicolas Slonimsky "Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns" , which was published 14 years before Persichetti's book and became Coltrane's desk book ? ?

Yes, I studied it a bit in the seventieth.
Do you know that Coltrane got part of his "Giant Steps" melody out of this book? Look at scale number 286. :-) It's exactly "Giant Steps" starting at bar 8.

Scale number 1154 is the Hirajoshi and scale number 1155 the Kumoi.
I usually need the Kumoi for 5 part pentatonic voicings.

You are right. Thesaurus is older than 20th Century Harmony but that doesn't mean nothing in regard of scale names. Slonimsky does not use these names and Mark Levine does use a complete different name.

Cudo, the saxophonist Avshalom Ben Shlomo, who is a native of the States, lives in Israel in Hebrew Israelites community in Dimona. Once he told me about his conversation with Coltrane on how to work on improvisation; where JC stressed the crucial importance for him of the book Slonimsky.

Back to the original comment by the OP and guitarists thinking major and minor pentatonic scales, etc.

Just my observation and I’m coming late to the party, as it were, but the plethora of videos and method books we have in jazz which, on the one hand, are a blessing, on the other hand, are a curse. The curse aspect is that ALL a pentatonic scale is is a scale that consists of 5 notes. Most texts on jazz, if they point that out, then focus on only a few of huge possible number of pentatonic scales. Those few they focus on are the most commonly used ones. Consequently, ideas tend to standarise and perhaps ossify?

But, pentatonic scales that consists of five notes. Which 5 notes? Some PLAYERS use some GROUPS more than others. So, if you’re in the business of naming scales and a 5-note grouping comes up over and over again, well, you’ve probably found a pentatonic scale of one kind or another and if it ends up with a name then, good, we’ve got a way to refer to it. That’s the blessing that comes from the many jazz texts that are available.

My opinion is Jjo, in his comment, provides what most people I know would define as the common pentatonic. But, again, it’s the property of five notes that counts. But something that comes along with those five notes that Jjo mentions is remove one of them (the D) and you’ve got a Cmaj6 chord. If you’ve looked at any of the educational materials from Barry Harris, that’ll major 6th chord is essential. He does a lot more with it than just show how to use a major 6th chord.

And, in fact, so it’s said, or I think he said, that he’s the one who gave Coltrane his first copy of The Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns: A small but important detail that often gets lost while that contains a lot of scales, they’re all symmetrical scales in one way or another. So while it’s true that Coltrane practiced like a demon from that book, it’s also true that he was very interested in symmetry in music and that book hit something that interested him.

Visit this link to find more information about his interest in symmetry than you may want.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=coltrane+symmetry+diagram

Once you get to that page, also click on the links to images and videos. A lot more will come up.

Something else to know about symmetry and the Slonimsky is things that are symmetrical often jump around through a bunch of keys or manage to avoid any one key altogether. That’s a broad statement and symmetry exists in music in many ways other than just arrangements of notes. So as one of the classic exampleas with notes, you can find symmetry in classical music and not just jazz. Bach’s Musical Offering has a crab canon that’s one of the great examples of all time.

The vid gives a great and amazing demonstration!

https://youtu.be/xUHQ2ybTejU

Those who are interested in exploring symmetry through a contemporary lens might take a look at Jerry Bergonzi’s Thesaurus of Intervallic Melodies.

Here’s a blog post I wrote that points to a book for pianists of non-tonal exercises, many of which are symmetrical.

https://www.polishookpiano.com/blog/four-little-notes/

Something else ... When we talk about symmetry, we’re also talking about patterns. Of course, many in jazz practice all sorts of patterns and the Bergonzi text, for example, consists exclusively of patterns, although they’re much different in shape and outcome than those in Slonimsky’s theory of harmony.

After a blog post I wrote about symmetry (and patterns), I had a discussion that went on over a few years with the saxophonist Steve Coleman. I have no idea if he’s known in this forum, but he should be .... many credit his ideas and musical styles with bringing out whole new aspects of jazz that weren’t previously in the vocabulary. One of his big ideas, and he’s the one who named it, is a kind of harmony that comes from symmetry and patterns which he refers to as “NEGATIVE HARMONY,” which comes, turn, from an obscure theory book by Ernst Levy.

It’s well worth learning more about because it (Coleman’s approach) is a contemporary road into to harmony and melody in jazz. It can encompass all things traditional, such as taught by Barry Harris or Mark Levine or any of the standard suspects, and then there’s much more in it, say, the vocabulary of today and perhaps tomorrow, for example!

Anyway, here’s the link to my blog post. The discussion with Steve Coleman is in the comments section.

http://www.polishookstudio.com/2014/02/the-patterns-of-barry-harris-arnold.html

I hope I’ve added something useful. There’s already been a lot of interesting ground in this discussion with some good stories, too ...

Mark, after a period of tonal bebop, the musicians began to look for ways out of tonal clarity and convergence of the melodic line with speech melody. O. Coleman, S. Rollins, Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Steve Lacey, Lenny Tristano, Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley, and others looked for it in different ways; which included direct dodecaphony, non-tonal symmetrical systems, melodic technique "inside - out", alternative harmonic systems - also negative harmony . This is the inevitable path of musical evolution, repeating what took place 45 years earlier in music of the period of expressionism. Symmetrical scales and dodecaphonia weaken or even eliminate the tonal connections between chords, between melody and chords, between pitches in the melody itself. In this situation, the importance of natural melodic intonation comes to the fore, as the main means of expression — in contrast to previous periods, which represented the aesthetics of melodic structures. Therefore, Coltrane can be called imo the greatest humanist in the field of jazz.

Nahum, thanks for your comments, questionable as they may be..

Of course, everyone can have their point of view. I speak as a former member of the Platina group, where we also developed elements of atonality and dodecaphony; although the concept of "dodecaphonic improvisation" is an oxymoron.

https://yadi.sk/d/63HKIJwJ3UERcZ from 08 :23