Originally Posted by: SRVFan2000If I am playing E MINOR Penta to something like blues (so a minor progression)[/quote]I'm guessing this might be part of your confusion. Most blues is actually a major chord progression (major key), but featuring occasional minor ornamental notes.
Most blues uses dominant 7th chords throughout the progression. So, there is a constant clashing or mixing of major 3rd & minor 7th chord tones. That's why both major pentatonic and minor pentatonic can be used, almost interchangably, with most blues. Often many blues players will use major pentatonic over the I chord, then change to minor pentatonic over the IV chord.
For example, in the key of E major:
E7 (I): e-g#-b-d
play E major pentatonic notes emphasizing chord tones: e-f#-g#-b-c#
A7 (IV): a-c#-e-g
play E minor pentatonic notes emphasizing chord tones: e-g-a-b-d
Notice that you can mix either of those scales over each chord because there's a lot of overlap in matching scale notes & chord tones.
To make things even more complicated (!), a lot of blues licks & riffs freely mix notes from major & minor scales together in the same line.
Play this over the E7 chord: E major pentatonic with the minor 3rd!
|-------------------------------------------------9-12--|
|-----------------------------------------9-12----------|
|------------------------9---9-11-12------------------|
|----------------9--11----------------------------------|
|-----9-10-11------------------------------------------|
|-12----------------------------------------------------|
How about this? E minor pentatonic with the flat 5th and the major 3rd!
|-12-----------------------------------|
|-----15-12---------------------------|
|--------------15-14-12-13----------|
|-------------------------------14------|
|----------------------------------------|
|----------------------------------------|
Try this over the A7 (IV chord): some E major scale notes, minor scale notes & minor 6th (which works really well because it's the minor 3rd leading to the major 3rd of the A chord).
|------------------12-15---------|
|-----12-13-14------------------|
|-14-----------------------14----|
|-----------------------------------|
|-----------------------------------|
|-----------------------------------|
The point here is that you can use a wide variety of major and, or minor notes as you are following the chord tones and making little melodic phrases.
When you are first learning it's important to learn & play the minor & major pentatonic boxes in order to get your fingers used to those patterns & your ears used to those sounds. But gradually you learn specific licks to play that work over the chord changes and use the boxes more as visual reference guides than patterns to play up & down.
Have a look at this series of tutorials on using major notes in minor pentatonic.
https://www.guitartricks.com/search.php?query=%22major+notes+in+minor+pentatonic%22
Originally Posted by: SRVFan20001. Can I ever play the MAJOR Penta over this and have it sound right?[/quote]Sure, but you have to integrate it with the chords that are happening & make melodic, satisfying phrases. In other words, it depends on what sound you want at that point in the music. Hopefully you can use my examples above to understand that.
Originally Posted by: SRVFan20002. Would this be still be considered the E MAJOR Pentatonic or C#/Db Minor Penta and WOULD IT WORK?
It depends on the key signature of the song & the chord progression. If you are playing an E major blues then you are using these chords: E7 (I) - A7 (IV) - B7 (V). Key of E major.
[quote=SRVFan2000]I suppose that Eminor Penta has a relative MAJOR of G...so I should just stick to playing the EMinor/GMajor Penta?
Again, it depends on the key signature of the chords you are playing over. If you are in E major, then any notes you play should use E major as the reference point.
If you use notes from the E minor scale, then you refer to them as E minor scale notes but as accidentals in the key of E major (minor 3rd, flat 5th, minor 7th).
[quote=SRVFan2000]I am just confused as I have been conditioned to think in terms of sliding down (towards nut) 3 frets to jump into the Major Penta.
Sure, and that's a great first step while yo uare learning. But that is just to get used to locating the shapes, the boxes, as visual references. The next step is to learn some licks & see how they outline or emphasize chord tones of the chord progression.
