Pentatonic Scale - Further Pentatonic Musical Traditions

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 shown below, which is the fourth mode of the major pentatonic scale.

In Javanese gamelan music, the slendro scale is pentatonic, with roughly equally spaced intervals ( MIDI sample). 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.

In Scottish music, the pentatonic scale is very common. 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 most often uses anhemitonic tetratonic or pentatonic scales.

In Andean music, the pentatonic scale is used substantially minor, sometimes major, and seldom in scale. Andean music preserves and develops a rich heritage of Incas' musical culture. 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.

Jazz music commonly uses both the major and the minor pentatonic scales. For example, 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. Rock guitar solo almost all over B minor pentatonic 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 melodies of popular music sometimes contain the pentatonic scale. For example, in the songs "Ol' Man River" or "Sukiyaki". The pentatonic scale 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," which keep soldiers in step while marching or running, also typically use pentatonic scales.

Hymns and other religious music sometimes use the pentatonic scale. For example, the melody of the hymn "Amazing Grace", one the most famous of all pieces of religious music.

Composers of Western classical music have used pentatonic scales for special effects. 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. Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde also contains heavy influences from Oriental pentatonic scales, mixed in with an advanced Romantic harmonic idiom, forming a rather unique sounding masterpiece.

The common pentatonic major and minor scales (C-D-E-G-A and C-E♭-F-G-B♭, 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.