S9: E169 Pentatonic Scales

 Afternoon Ti Podcast

Season 9

Episode 169

Pentatonic Scales

The Pentatonic Scale.  The power of five pitches. Can be created in a variety of ways to give a specific sound to the piece. Easy to manipulate home tones to create different sounds within the scale.  Can be played by the black keys on the piano.  Can be sung beautifully.  Great for improvisations and compositions.  So versatile in the classroom.  Some of the reasons I find so much joy using the pentatonic scale with students.

Today we’re going to talk about pentatonic scales - what they are and how we can use them with students, in a broad sense.  Then over the next few episodes you’ll hear lesson ideas using this concept with recorders, singing, barred instruments, composition, and improvisation.  Lots of great things in store over the next few weeks!

A pentatonic scale is a series of five pitches used within a musical piece.  It can be helpful to break down the word - Penta meaning five… where else do we hear this?  What other words contain this prefix?

Pentagon - shape with five sides 

Pentahedron - shape having five plane faces

Pentatonix - the singing group with five singers.

Pentapeptide - a peptide composed of five amino acids.

Pentathlon - an Olympic sport made up of five events: fencing, freestyle swimming (200m), equestrian show jumping (15 jumps), pistol shooting, and cross country running.

Pentathlete - an athlete who participates in a pentathlon

Pentamorous - having flower parts in sets of five (petals, stamens, or sepals - green leafy parts on the outside)

To drive this idea of ‘penta’ home, you might put several pictures of these on the board.  Ask students what they notice.  What do the pictures have in common?

The second half of the word (suffix) ‘Tonic’ means tone.  Or note.

Put together - pentatonic means five notes.  A pentatonic scale is therefore a scale with five notes.

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates The Power of the Pentatonic Scale in a video on youtube.  It’s a fun one for students to watch and participate in following him. 

TYPES OF PENTATONIC SCALES

Two common pentatonic scales:

1. Major pentatonic

2. Minor pentatonic

Major Pentatonic

• Do re mi so la

• Created from minor 3rds and major 2nds; Anhemitonic form of the pentatonic scale is without half steps

• Compared to a major 7 note scale, it’s all of the notes except the fourth and seventh pitches

• Home tone is ‘do’

Minor Pentatonic

• La do re mi so

• Same pitches as the major, but the home tone is ‘la’

• Aeolian mode

There are both created from groups of two and three note combinations.  They’re representative of the Western European musical tradition.  I’ll share other examples of pentatonic scales that are different from this, as there are many ways to create pentatonic scales.  The structure of our pentatonic scales often reflects the natural elements found in the songs children sing and the music of our culture.  In American folk music this means the use of minor thirds (like So-Mi) and adding the sixth degree (La) next.  It also incorporates Do-Re-Mi, progression using first, second, and third scale degrees.  Put together - we get our pentatonic scale.

If C is ‘do’ - we would call the scale a C-do pentatonic scale and it would use pitches CDE GA.  If we want to vary the sound, we change the home tone within this scale and create modal pieces.

If D is the home note - Egyptian suspended in Dorian mode

E as home note - Phyrgian mode

G as home note - Mixolydian mode

A as home note - Aeolian, minor pentatonic 

HOW TO USE WITH STUDENTS

1. Begin with So/Mi/La  OR Do/Re/Mi

I love that we can approach the pentatonic scale from two directions - likely more:  

Older beginners can learn do/re/mi and then build the pentatonic scale from there.

Or younger students can begin with So/mi - add la - add do - add re.  Progress through singing, moving, and playing pieces with these pitches.

2. Student improvisations on the piano

Directions:  Teacher plays the chords using Gb major and Eb minor… If you want to use another chord, consider playing Db with only the root and 5th of the chord - no third. (just play the Db and the Ab in the chord)

Two rules for the students: 

1) play only black keys   

2) move stepwise to create a melody - can only move to the black keys on either side of the one that you are currently playing

No need to explain the names of all of the notes in this scale.  Students can identify that the pitches are in groups of 3’s and 2’s.  Helps in transitioning to barred instruments - when setting up pentatonic scales, most of them will be in alternating groups of 3’s and 2’s depending on which pentatonic scale you’re setting up… G pentatonic on the bars causes two sets of 2 bars in a row if your instrument ends on a high A in the higher range.

3. Students find connections to pentatonic music around the world

Used around the world and in many styles of music.  How other pentatonic scales are used in music outside of our familiar musical context.  Students will observe that the pentatonic scales used in other cultures include pitches found outside of our major/minor pentatonic scales.  For example, one pentatonic scale found in the first piece is CD Eflat F and A.  Bagpipes often play pentatonic scales and played in Scottish music.  Indonesian (gamelan ensembles), Inca, Andean, and Ethiopian cultures use pentatonic scales in quite a bit of their music as well.  I’ll include links to several pieces that you can share with students.

1 - Indian Classical Music: Raag Abhogi Kanada (C, D, E-flat, F, A)

2 - Javanese Gamelan Ensemble - Pelog Barang - Singa Nebah (The Pouncing Lion) 

3 - Traditional Inca Music - panpipe

4 - Andean Music

5 - Scottish - For Ever Fortune - Scottish Music 18th Century - The Wawking of the Faulds

6 - Shake that Bagpipe

7 - Ethiopian Pentatonic - Asnakech Worku - great diva from Ethiopia with her lyra performing Arada 

4. Students play, sing, and listen to pentatonic pieces in the classroom (pieces such as American folk songs, Western European classical and pop pieces from Europe and America)

Our ears are used to the specific way that our music is created and performed in our cultures and the instruments used in the music that we spend the most time listening to.  The same goes for our students.  It’s good for us to share music that is relevant to our students in terms of what they already listen to outside of the classroom and bridge the gap between music from a long time ago, music from other countries and music that they identify with.  It gives our students perspective and understanding.  And relevancy.  That what they’re learning about is used in the music that they engage with outside of the classroom. It’s not just an old music technique or a piece written by an old man printed on a poster that has no connection to them - pentatonic scales are something they can personally hear in their music, recognize and connect with, and then compose, improvise and create new pieces of their own.

I’m excited to share lesson ideas for how we can use the instruments that many of us have in our classrooms to some degree - recorders, barred instruments, and singing - so that you can guide students through numerous ways of listening, learning, performing, improvising, and composing with pentatonic scales.