7/3/13

Ah, the goddess of scales - the pentatonic. At some point this had to come up. Without bringing it up, It would be like talking about building construction and never mentioning the foundation.

Todays piece is a melody using just the major pentatonic scale. I've voiced harmony a fourth below. It's so easy to play diatonically and go anywhere. This scale is so universal I'm hard-pressed to think of any music throughout history that didn't use this sound, at least from the point it developed a more sophisticated harmonic sense - chords/scales.

This scale is so in all of us. I saw Bobby McFerrin demonstrate during an audience participation segment of his live show, the audiences ability to guess the next note up or down of a pentatonic scale once given a few notes to get started. Not knowing myself what it's like to not know scales and their sound, it was astonishing to see how people of no or little association of pitches and their sequence seem to know this scale. Very cool!

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