Originally Posted by: dvenetianIf you wanted to play E-A-B as a Major progression with the emphasis on E you could play the E Ionian mode (E Major Scale).

Exactly. Good point.

Never miss or forget the obvious! If you are in E major ... then play in E major! :)

To try and address a little of this I created a new theory tutorial on how to use pentatonic shapes to learn the scale degrees:
Pentatonic Scales Lessons

Hope this helps someone out there.