Ab major pentatonic scale
- Notes
- Ab Bb C Eb F
- Formula
- 1 2 3 5 6
- Steps
- W W W+H W W+H (W tone, H semitone)
- Also written
- G# major pentatonic: G# A# B# D# E#
Five notes from Ab up to the next Ab. Each note is written with the letter its degree names, so the spelling follows the formula.
Ab major pentatonic on the piano
From Ab4 to Ab5, the root in blue-green.
Intervals from Ab
| Note | Degree | Interval | Semitones |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ab | 1 | root | 0 |
| Bb | 2 | major second | 2 |
| C | 3 | major third | 4 |
| Eb | 5 | perfect fifth | 7 |
| F | 6 | major sixth | 9 |
Ab major pentatonic on the guitar
Standard tuning, high e on top as in tablature, open strings to fret 12. Every dot is a note of the scale; the pattern repeats from fret 12 up.
Chords that fit Ab major pentatonic
Every chord of the common types (triads, sus, sixths, sevenths, add9, 7b9, 7#9) whose notes are all in the scale, on each of its notes, spelled as on the chord pages. A 5-note scale has no single set of "the" chords the way a seven-note scale does.
Same notes, different home note
Ab major pentatonic uses exactly the same notes as F minor pentatonic. What changes is the note the music keeps returning to, and with it which chord sounds like home.
How Ab major pentatonic is built
The major scale without its 4th and 7th: Db and G are left out of Ab major. Those are the two notes a semitone away from their neighbours, so the pentatonic has no semitones at all and no note clashes hard with the Ab chord. It has the same five notes as F minor pentatonic, started from a different note.
Played some notes and not sure which scale they come from? The scale finder listens to the piano, a MIDI keyboard or the microphone and ranks all 180 scales.
What this page cannot do
- One spelling per scale. G# major pentatonic is the same sounds written from G#; the root is spelled the way that needs the fewest sharps and flats.
- Equal temperament only. Blues and many folk traditions bend notes between these pitches, and Arabic and Turkish maqam scales use quarter tones that a piano cannot play.
- The guitar diagram shows standard tuning only and does not suggest fingerings; any note can be played in several places.
- The sound is a simple synthesised tone made in your browser, not a recorded instrument.