Originally Posted by: JoR0hey all, Im finally biting the bullet and learning me some theory! Im just finishing learning the major pentatonic to all degrees up and down the frets, and now I'm moving to minor, but I had a question as to how you decide which degrees to keep in and which to take out, since minor is sans 2 & 6 and major is without 4 & 7?

The minor and the major pentatonics are the same scales, just starting at a different root notes and then have different intervals because the minor and the major scales have different intervals (The notes left out are at the same places but are differtent degrees because of the counint being different for majors and minors

The way I remember them is I learned the major pentatonic first, and then the relative minor is the 6th degree of the major(Always 3 half steps back from the root of the major penta

For example if :
major is C, the Am is the relative minor

Major is D, minor is Bm etc etc

But the scale form is the same for both(Just different root note and then different intervals.

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse you.

Michael