Can anyone explain the reason guitarists use the pentatonic scale vs a major scale when soloing?
Being that most guitar players are rock players, and because rock is based in the blues, then I think it has to do with guitar players messing around with blues/rock jams. They just grow up using this scale so often, that it becomes very automatic to use it whenever they’re improvising. It’s like when you use the same words over and over again, then you simply use that vocabulary unless you try to expand. Thus, guitar players simply need to practice using the major/minor scales as well as modal scales (phrygian, locrian, etc.) This is why I’m a fond listener of people like Chuck Schuldiner and Marty Friedman. Sure they may use the pentatonic at times, but their arsenal includes some awesome use of modal lines like Schuldiner’s use of the Phrygian scales and Friedman’s mixtures of pentatonics, majors, japanese, etc. “You don’t know what you don’t know” as my theory teacher always said. As far as leaving notes out that you don’t need: Well, yes and no. But expanding to larger scale forms
