Why do I need to know Pentatonic scales?

[lindateaches]

I don't understand why i would need to know the pentatonic, harmonic, minor scales.  What is the value of knowing these scales?  I can figure out regular chords and I know the scales of most major keys.  I want to know how this will help.  i  really only enjoy playing very traditional Black Gospel music.

[BBoy]

Much of what Black gospel uses for melodies and runs are pentatonic scales.

Also, when black gospel produces what we call "talk music" or "backing a preacher" it is often in a minor key until the chord progression reseolves.

Hope this helps

[sacred-composer]

You say you like traditional gospel music and there are pentatonic scales used all over the place in such as anthems, spirituals etc.
It would shock you if knew how many gospel songs use those scales.
Food for thought.  

[jremon]

I think that there is another important aspect of playing scales that is extremely important, and that is the fact that scales provide the basic building blocks for developing strong technical facility on your instrument. You will, quite often, find the best musicians around always practicing scales. As a traditional jazz musician, I find myself not only practicing major and minor, but diminished whole tone, diminished, half - diminished, as well as many others. I also just don't play them up and down, but I play them in thirds, fourths, etc.. All of this is done so that I can have absolute mastery of my instrument. In addition, knowing all of the scales makes improvising easier.

Saxman1
Austin,TX

[lindateaches]

Can you give my the chords that I could play using  the pentatonic and harmonic scale?  I use the scales to find the chords for the major and minor chords, but the pentatonic only has 5 notes.  how is that possible to play asong with only those notes to build the chords???

[sacred-composer]

lindateaches if you are playing a song in the style of the negro spirituals you may choose to harmonize vocal and instrumental accompaniment with the melody, which is already using the pentatonic scale, using only the notes of that scale. So in the case of a C major pentatonic scale the notes are of course: C D E G A so that would limit you to the following chords: CMaj C E G, Amin A C E, CMaj6 C E G A, Amin7 A C E G, Asus4 A D E G, CMaj6/9 C E G A D
Now there are a few other chords such as sus2 and sus4 and 7ths chords that may or may not be complete without the 5th for example which also are some possibilities.
Now what has been done alot with pentatonic melodies is the use of harmonies not limited to the notes of the pentatonic scale. So the harmony would depend on the style and what best goes with the melody which is very subjective. So this part would boil down to what is musically pleasing to your ear and the ears of your intended audience. Now if the audience is expecting a more strict historical rendering of the song then you may not necessarily be limited to the 5 notes of the pentatonic scale of the melody but they probably would have a problem if you threw in some altered 9th, 11th and 13th chords. lol.
I hope that you, Be blessed