A
pentatonic scale is a musical
scale with five notes per
octave in contrast to a
heptatonic (seven note) scale such as the
major scale. Pentatonic scales are very common and are found all over the world, including
Celtic folk music,
Hungarian folk music,
West African music, African-American
spirituals,
Gospel music,
American folk music,
Jazz, American
blues music,
rock music,
Sami joik singing,
children's song, the
music of ancient Greece[2][3] and the
Greek traditional music and
songs from
Epirus,
Northwest Greece,music of
Southern Albania, the tuning of the Ethiopian
krar and the Indonesian
gamelan, Philippine
Kulintang,
Native American music, melodies of
Korea,
Malaysia,
Japan,
China,
India and
Vietnam (including the
folk music of these countries), the
Andean music, the
Afro-Caribbean tradition, Polish highlanders from the
Tatra Mountains, and Western Classical composers such as French composer
Claude Debussy. The pentatonic scale is also used on the
Great Highland Bagpipe.
The ubiquity of pentatonic scales, specifically anhemitonic
modes, can be attributed to the total lack of the most
dissonant intervals between any
pitches; there are neither any
minor seconds (and therefore also no complementary
major sevenths) nor any
tritones. This means any pitches of such a scale may be played in any order or combination without clashing.
] Types of pentatonic scales
Hemitonic and anhemitonic
Ethnomusicology commonly classifies pentatonic scales as either
hemitonic or
anhemitonic. Hemitonic scales contain one or more
semitones and anhemitonic scales do not contain semitones. For example, a hemitonic pentatonic scale common in some areas of North and West Africa contains flatted 2nd, 3rd, and 6th degrees (hence, if the scale begins in C, it will contain a D-flat, E-flat, and A-flat, plus a G-natural).
Major pentatonic scale
Anhemitonic pentatonic scales can be constructed in many ways. One construction takes five consecutive pitches from the
circle of fifths; starting on C, these are C, G, D, A, and E. Transposing the pitches to fit into one
octave rearranges the pitches into the major pentatonic scale: C, D, E, G, A, C.
Another construction works backward: It omits two pitches from a
diatonic scale. If we were to begin with a C
major scale, for example, we might omit the fourth and the seventh
scale degrees, F and B. The remaining notes, C, D, E, G, and A, are transpositionally equivalent to the black keys on a piano keyboard: G-flat, A-flat, B-flat, D-flat, and E-flat.
Omitting the
third and seventh degrees of the C major scale obtains the notes for another transpositionally equivalent anhemitonic pentatonic scale: {F,G,A,C,D}. Omitting the first and fourth degrees of the C major scale gives a third anhemitonic pentatonic scale: {G,A,B,D,E}.
Minor pentatonic scale
Although various hemitonic pentatonic scales might be called
minor, the term is most commonly applied to the
relative minor pentatonic derived from the major pentatonic, using scale tones 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the
natural minor scale. The C minor pentatonic would be C, E-flat, F, G, B-flat. The A minor pentatonic, the relative minor of C, would be the same tones as C major pentatonic, starting on A, giving A, C, D, E, G. This minor pentatonic contains all three tones of an A minor triad.
Songs on the minor pentatonic scale include the popular
[citation needed] Canadian folk song "
Land of the Silver Birch". Because of their simplicity, pentatonic scales are often used to introduce children to music. Other popular children's songs are almost pentatonic. For example, the almost-pentatonic nature of the
Gershwin lullaby "
Summertime", is evident when it is played in the key of E-flat minor. In that key, the melody can be played almost entirely on the black keys of a piano, except just once per verse, where a white key is needed.
Five black-key pentatonic scales of the piano
The five pentatonic scales found by running up the
black keys on the
piano are:
| Mode | Name(s) | Black notes | Intervals | White key equivalent
(/transposition) |
| 1 | Minor Pentatonic | E♭-G♭-A♭-B♭-D♭-E♭ | U, m3, P4, P5, m7, 8ve | A C D E G |
| 2 | Major Pentatonic | G♭-A♭-B♭-D♭-E♭-G♭ | U, M2, M3, P5, M6, 8ve | C D E G A |
| 3 | Egyptian, Suspended | A♭-B♭-D♭-E♭-G♭-A♭ | U, M2, P4, P5, m7, 8ve | D E G A C |
| 4 | Blues Minor, Man Gong | B♭-D♭-E♭-G♭-A♭-B♭ | U, m3, P4, m6, m7, 8ve | E G A C D |
| 5 | Blues Major, Ritusen | D♭-E♭-G♭-A♭-B♭-D♭ | U, M2, P4, P5, M6, 8ve | G A C D E |
- (U = Unison; P = Perfect; m = Minor; M = Major; 8ve = Octave)
Tuning
Proceeding by the principle that historically gives the Pythagorean diatonic and chromatic scales, stacking perfect fifths with 3:2 frequency proportions, the anhemitonic pentatonic scale can be tuned thus: 1:9/8:81/64:3/2:27/16. Considering the anhemitonic scale as a subset of a just diatonic scale, it is tuned thus: 1:9/8:5/4:3/2:5/3. Assigning precise frequency proportions to the pentatonic scales of most cultures is problematic. The slendro anhemitonic scales of Java and Bali are said to approach, very roughly, an equally-tempered five note scale, but, in fact, their tunings vary dramatically from
gamelan to gamelan. Specially trained musicians among the
Gogo people of Tanzania sing the fourth through ninth (and occasionally tenth) harmonics above a fundamental, which do necessarily accurately correspond to the frequency proportions 4:5:6:7:8:9, but this is not a scale in the western sense because these pitches are not found within a single octave and could not be put into a single octave with this manner of performance. Composer
Lou Harrison has been one of the most recent proponents and developers of new pentatonic scales based on historical models.
Further pentatonic musical traditions
The major pentatonic scale is the basic scale of the
music of China and the
music of Mongolia. The fundamental tones (without
meri or
kari techniques) rendered by the 5 holes of the
Japanese shakuhachi flute play a minor pentatonic scale. The traditional Japanese song "
Sakura" uses a hemitonic pentatonic scale of the notes A-B-C-E-F. The
Yo scale used in Japanese
shomyo Buddhist chants and
gagaku imperial court music is an anhemitonic pentatonic scale
[4][dead link] shown below, which is the fourth mode of the major pentatonic scale.
The
slendro scale used in
Javanese gamelan music is pentatonic, with roughly equally spaced intervals (
MIDI sample (help·info)). Another scale,
pelog, has seven tones, but is generally played using one of several pentatonic subsets (known as
pathets), which are roughly analogous to different keys or modes.
The pentatonic scale is very common in
Scottish music. The Great Highland bagpipe scale is considered three interlaced pentatonic scales. This is especially true for
Piobaireachd which typically uses one of the pentatonic scales out of the nine possible notes. It also features in
Irish traditional music, either purely or almost so. The minor pentatonic is used in
Appalachian folk music.
Blackfoot music is most often pentatonic or
hexatonic.
The pentatonic scale (substantially minor, sometimes major and seldom
in scale) is used in
Andean music which preserves and develops a rich heritage of
Incas' musical culture.
[citation needed] In the most ancient genres of Andean music being performed without string instruments (only with
winds and
percussion), pentatonic melody is often leaded with parallel
fifths and
fourths, so formally this music is hexatonic. Hear example:
Pacha Siku (help·info).
Both the major and the minor pentatonic scales are commonly used in
jazz (notably by jazz pianists
Art Tatum,
Chick Corea and
Herbie Hancock),
blues, and
rock. Pentatonic scales are useful for
improvisors in modern jazz, pop, and rock contexts because they work well over several chords
diatonic to the same key, often better than the parent scale. For example, the
blues scale is predominantly derived from the minor pentatonic scale, a very popular scale for
improvisation in the realm of blues and rock alike
[5].
Rock guitar solo almost all over B minor pentatonic (help·info) For instance, over a C major triad (C, E, G) in the key of C major, the note F can be perceived as dissonant as it is a half step above the major third (E) of the chord. It is for this reason commonly avoided. Using the major pentatonic scale is an easy way out of this problem. The scale tones 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 (from the major pentatonic) are either major triad tones (1, 3, 5) or common consonant extensions (2, 6) of major triads. For the corresponding relative minor pentatonic, scale tones 1, ♭3, 4, 5, ♭7 work the same way, either as minor triad tones (1, ♭3, 5) or as common extensions (4, ♭7), as they all avoid being a half step from a chord tone.
The pentatonic scale occurs in the melodies of popular music: for example in "
Ol' Man River" or "
Sukiyaki". It is also a staple ingredient of
film music, where it is used as a shorthand to signal primitive or exotic contexts. With suitable changes in orchestration it can be used to depict an Oriental setting, a scene with
American Indians, or a rustic
hoedown. An example of film music in which
both the East-Asian and American-Western elements of the story are suggested in the melody is the title theme for
The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.
U.S. military cadences, or "jodies," used to keep soldiers in step while marching or running, also typically use pentatonic scales.
[6].
The pentatonic scale also occurs in
hymns and other religious music. The hymn "
Amazing Grace", arguably the most famous of all pieces of religious music, has a melody set to the notes of the pentatonic major scale.
Composers of Western
classical music have used pentatonic scales for special effects.
Frédéric Chopin wrote the right hand piano part of his
Etude Op. 10 no. 5 in the major G-flat pentatonic scale, and therefore, the melody is played using only the black keys.
Antonín Dvořák, inspired by the
native American music and African-American
spirituals he heard in America, made extensive use of pentatonic themes in his
"New World" Symphony and his
"American" Quartet.
Giacomo Puccini's
Madama Butterfly and
Turandot allude to the pentatonicism of Japan and China respectively.
Maurice Ravel used a pentatonic scale as the basis for a melody in "Passacaille", the third movement of his
Piano Trio, and as a
pastiche of Chinese music in "Laideronette, Emperatrice des Pagodes", a movement from his
Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose).
Béla Bartók's
The Miraculous Mandarin and
Igor Stravinsky's
The Nightingale contain many pentatonic passages.
The common pentatonic major and minor scales (C-D-E-G-A and C-Eb-F-G-Bb, respectively) are useful in modal composing, as both scales allow a melody to be modally ambiguous between their respective major (Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian) and minor (Aeolian, Phrygian, Dorian) modes (Locrian excluded). With either modal or non-modal writing, however, the
harmonization of a pentatonic melody does not necessarily have to be derived from only the pentatonic pitches.
Use in education
The pentatonic scale plays a significant role in
music education, particularly in
Orff-based methodologies at the
primary/elementary level. The Orff system places a heavy emphasis on developing creativity through
improvisation in children, largely through use of the pentatonic scale.
Orff instruments, such as
xylophones,
bells and other
metallophones, use wooden bars, metal bars or bells which can be removed by the teacher leaving only those corresponding to the pentatonic scale, which
Carl Orff himself believed to be children's native tonality.
[7] Children begin improvising using only these bars, and over time, more bars are added at the teacher's discretion until the complete
diatonic scale is being used. Orff believed that the use of the pentatonic scale at such a young age was appropriate to the development of each child, since the nature of the scale meant that it was impossible for the child to make any real
harmonic mistakes.
Further reading
- Pentatonicism from the Eighteenth Century to Debussy by Jeremy Day-O'Connell (University of Rochester Press 2007) – the first comprehensive account of the increasing use of the pentatonic scale in 19th century Western art music, including a catalogue of over 400 musical examples.
- Tran Van Khe "Le pentatonique est-il universel? Quelques reflexions sur le pentatonisme", The World of Music 19, nos. 1–2:85–91 (1977). English translation p. 76–84
- Kurt Reinhard, "On the problem of pre-pentatonic scales: particularly the third-second nucleus", Journal of the International Folk Music Council 10 (1958).
- Yamaguchi, Masaya (New York: Charles Colin, 2002; Masaya Music, Revised 2006). Pentatonicism in Jazz: Creative Aspects and Practice. ISBN 0967635314
- Jeff Burns, Pentatonic Scales for the Jazz-Rock Keyboardist (1997).
References - ^ Benward & Saker (2003). Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. I, p.37. Seventh Edition. ISBN 978-0-07-294262-0.
- ^ M. L. West, "Ancient Greek Music", Clarendon Press, 1994
- ^ A.-F. Christidis , "A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity", Cambridge University Press, Rev. & Expanded Translation of the Greek Text edition, 2007
- ^ Japanese Music, Cross-Cultural Communication: World Music, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay[dead link] http://web.archive.org/web/20080313144427/http://www.uwgb.edu/ogradyt/world/japan.htm
- ^ "The Pentatonic and Blues Scale". How To Play Blues Guitar. 2008-07-09. http://how-to-play-blues-guitar.com/blues-concepts/the-pentatonic-and-blues-scale/. Retrieved 2008-07-11.
- ^ "NROTC Cadences". http://www.lukeswartz.com/nrotc/cadences.html. Retrieved 2010-09-22.
- ^ Beth Landis; Polly Carder (1972). The eclectic curriculum in American music education: contributions of Dalcroze, Kodaly, and Orff. Washington D.C.: Music Educators National Conference. p. 82. ISBN 978-0940796034.
