You probably have the basic gist of what a scale is. We sing some notes and they go up, up, up.
But when I start talking about pentatonic and diatonic and chromatic scales in class, people start wondering, "what the heck are those and why do we care?"
In this post, everyone (especially Sound Beginnings parents) can get excited about the pentatonic scale and improve their melody skills.
A Scale With Every Note
You may hear mention of the chromatic scale. (Chromatic means colorful.) This is a good one to start with because it means we play 12 semitone intervals, so 13 notes. Play every single piano key, black and white, and that's the chromatic scale. Voila!
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
On a piano, the 12 steps are evenly spaced, meaning the wavelength of the note changes by a consistent amount between each step. You've played an octave when you play a note that has a wavelength twice the length from the note you began on, a 2:1 ratio. The chromatic scale is the fundamental set of notes from which scales can be built. It's not really musical, because it doesn't have a tonic, a home note.
We love finding "Do is Home" in Let's Play Music, and being able to identify the home, or key note, in music we listen to. Music naturally pulls back to Do, so let's look at some scales that have a tonic note and work for writing melodies.
Scales Around the World
Thousands of years ago, peoples in different parts of the world discovered frequency ratios and pitch relationships. By selecting 5-8 tones with relationships they liked, scales were created and used to make melodies. Different cultures settled on varying scales, giving the music characteristic sounds.
Note: Any of the following scales could be played in any key by creating the same pattern of skipping tones (with whole steps and half steps) to create the scale.
The Diatonic Scale is our beloved Major Scale Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do! Read more about it here. Western music since the Middle Ages on has been based on this scale. We spend most of our time in class learning about this scale. The steps go: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Remember that trick and you can build a major scale on any note.
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
Here are the notes/intervals that make an Indian whole-tone scale, just one of the many scales that could be used in Indian music. Notice how evenly spaced the tones are...all whole steps, all the time. Here is some piano music using a whole tone scale. Sounds dreamy!
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
And a Hungarian Gypsy scale. Listen to it here...sounds like you would expect.
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
And an Arabic scale.... well, sort of. Arabic tone scales actually define wavelength intervals smaller than what we use (or have names for or piano keys for). When you're tuning your guitar and your note is a little too flat to be C but a little too sharp to be B, you're playing one of those Arabic notes that we usually pass over. Want to see how a guitar can make the microtones by adding extra frets? Pretty cool, and if you like getting sciencey with microtones, check out some computerized 53-microtone music.
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
The Blues Scale comes in super handy during our 3rd year of Let's Play Music when we get to play some piano blues! Write a new melody for your blues using these notes. Get some help learning Blues Scales here.
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
Pentatonic Scale Everywhere
The pentatonic scale, created by the mathematician, Pythagoras, is rather special. He started with a home/tonic note and added a perfect 5th. The 5th is an interval between two notes whose wavelength have a ratio 3:2.
Take the notes you have, repeat the process again and get 2 more notes, or 5 all together: the pentatonic scale. These notes have nice clean ratio-relationships, so they harmonize nicely together.
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
Do Re Mi Sol La Do
Why so popular for children?? Because hearing and singing this small set of easily defined musical intervals is age-appropriate and prerequisite for more advanced melodies. Pentatonic hearing and singing is foundational for children. You'll notice in class we start by hearing, echoing, and singing the minor 3rd (sol-mi).
Once children are hearing and reproducing it, Echo Ed sings patterns that contain la. Then we add in do and re as ear-training progresses to more complex tunes. (Very last we add echoes with fa and ti...notes from the major scale)
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates how his audience has already internalized the pentatonic scale. Wherever he goes in the world, the audience 'gets' the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is part of every musical culture!
Sing the Pentatonic
Here's a collection of songs built on the pentatonic scale. Many more of your favorite children's tunes fit into this category, too.
Notice that the pentatonic scale avoids half step intervals. It seems easier to train your vocal chords to jump to the intervals without having to consider the half steps that occur in the major scale.
Pentatonic songs are great to teach to your child or any beginning singer. You'll recognize many from our Sound Beginnings classes (click links to hear these songs). There are thousands of pentatonic songs you would recognize, but here are a few:
- Amazing Grace
- Camptown Races
- The Crawdad Song
- Mister Rabbit
- Old Dan Tucker
- Ten in the Bed
- Mary Wore Her Red Dress
- Alabama Gal
- Bow Wow Wow
- Old MacDonald Had a Farm (and other songs)
- Bought Me A Cat
- Old Brass Wagon
- Rocky Mountain
- Button You Must Wander
Have fun singing with the pentatonic scale, and if you're interested, check out our blog series on Singing in Tune.
- Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music teacher
The pentatonnic scale has, of late, drawn considerable attention by jazz artists as a tool in their improvisation. Perhaps as a reaction to the melodic patterns of their improvisation. Perhaps as a reaction to the melodic patterns of the Bop Era that were based primarily on chords with third intervals, many jazz artists, such as Freddie Hubbard, Chick Corea, and Joe Farrell, turned to pentatonic scales and pattterns in fourths and fifths as means of expressing their music. In the continuing evolution of music, it must be remembered that events that appear as a departurre almost always have roots in the past. The use of pentatonic is no exception. Numerous tunes of the 40´s and 50´s used pentatonic scale as an integral part of their molodies (Symphony Sid, Moanin, Cousing May).
ReplyDeleteThe Purpose of this book is to acquaint the avanced high school or college improviser with the vast resource of melodic material available through the use of pentatonic scales. It is not intended to be used as a complete method of improvisation, but rather as a supplement to other, more comprehensive, book which deal with chord/scale relationships, sustitute chords, melodic development, swing, etc. If pentatonics are used exclusively in improvisation the result can be a rather predictable, stereotyped sound. The author can not stress enough the continued study of chord/scale relationships and their application to jazz improvisation.
This method, if studied diligently, can provide the student with materials to build a harmonically "outside" improvisation while still retaining a logical basis. The use of these scales has proved particularly effective in turnarounds, and in modal or vamp playing. They also can be used with satisfying results in nearly every other circumstance in jazz. Because the scales often only hint at basic sonority while outlining the upper extensions of a chord, a skating quality above the changes is achieved. This is discussed in detail in Chapter II.