These 7th chords are sometimes called fence-sitting chords which means that because of their structure, they can lean towards either the major or the minor. For this reason, you actually have two options in choosing which scale to solo with over this track. You could choose an A minor scale, or an A major scale. I’ve chosen to work with the A major scale, and my reasoning for this is that I really like the sound of using the major triads over top of the 7 chord, as you’ll discover in the lesson.
It’s not wrong if you want to use A minor as your starting point, it just means that you have access to a different set of notes, which will create a different feel and sound in your solo.
To my ear, the major ends up being more melodic, because I can target the chord notes more directly.
I should also mention that even though I’m using A major, the scale pattern we’re starting with is a minor pattern. This may be confusing at first, until you realize that F# minor is the relative minor of A major, and thus they are perfectly related to each other. In fact, the F# minor scale is an exact replication of the A major scale, but starting from an F# instead of an A.
This Root 5 Pentatonic Minor scale is sometimes called a fourth-position pentatonic pattern, or a C-shape pattern, and it has other names as well. The main thing is to recognize the pattern for what it is, know where it’s root note is, and how to relate it to the key you’re playing in. For this reason, I like calling it the Root 5 Pentatonic Minor scale, because that lays out all the information I need to use it correctly.
If you have any questions on any of this, please ask them in the comments section below, and I’ll do my best to answer there.
