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S9: E172 Pentatonic Scales with Singing

Afternoon Ti Podcast

Season 9

Episode 172

Pentatonic Scales with Singing


There are a substantial amount of songs that use the pentatonic scale. And I love it so much.  It’s such a joy to sing pentatonic pieces.  Just makes me happy.  I’m going to share four pentatonic songs that you can sing with students as well as a few listening examples of pop and classical songs that utilize pentatonic scales.  The longer list of these songs will be shared in the blog.  It’s great for students to have examples from the music that they are familiar with so that it allows them to see that what we are teaching them happens now.  Not just in the olden days when the men with white hair who look like presidents created music, but current pop artists and people they might listen to at home use the things we are teaching them.  Makes it more relevant for them.


So let’s look at the four songs that we can teach students to help them explore the pentatonic scales..  This is only a glimpse at pentatonic song material.  There’s so many great pieces out there!


Here are four of my favorite pentatonic songs to sing with students. 


  1. Peace Like a River

Beautiful rendition with this video… students created choreography to it using umbrellas and played the piece with the video in the background (video muted)


  1. Charlie over the Ocean

Fun game - great for individual singers.


  1. How can I keep from singing?

Audrey Assad version

American folk song originally composed as a Christian hymn by American Baptist minister Robert Wadsworth Lowry

Could be a beautiful arrangement for choirs with solos during verses and all students singing the chorus… very simple and beautiful.


  1. Al Citron

Passing Game with a stone… I use beanbags, not stones.  Fun shift in passing during the last two measures “Triki Triki Tron.”  Choose to teach it this way or not!


Pop songs in pentatonic scales:

1 - Let it Be - Beatles

2 - Wake Me Up - Avicii

3 - I Know I’m Not the Only One - Sam Smith

4 - Hold On - Drake and Arctic Monkeys Cover

5 - Glad You Came - The Wanted

6 - Home - Phillip Phillips

7 - Amazing Grace - Pentatonix version 


Additional Pieces:

Sweet Home Alabama by Lynryd Skynyrd 

My Girl - the Temptations

I Love Rock and Roll - Joan Jett 

We Didn’t start the Fire - Chorus Billy Joel

Just the Two of Us (Chorus) - Bill Withers


Classical songs in pentatonic scales:

As early as 1798 - Abbé Georg-Joseph Vogler composed an all-black-key pieced entitled Pente Chordium.


  1. Pentatonic Mass(Missa Amazing Grace) - music by JungPyo Hong

  2. Anton Dvorak’s Symphony No 9: Mvmt #2 (Largo) - supposedly took the melody from an African-American spiritual.

Great piece to lead students in hand signs of body ladders with solfege as they’re listening.  No need to teach it beforehand - just guide students through following you.  They’ll pick it up quickly over several lessons.

  1. Puccini’s Turandot - theme used for the princess is based on a traditional Chinese folk melody “Mo Li Hua” - called the Mountains of the East

  2. Chopin’s Etude in G, Op 10, no 5 - Black Key Etude  

Cool video for students to watch using color coding to show where the hands play on the black keys.  A lot of my students have learned to play piano pieces using youtube videos like this.

  1. Anton Dvorak - “American” quartet Opus 96 No 12 - the Allegro moderato movement played by the viola:


Song with partial pentatonicism:

  1. Debussy’s piano prelude La fille aux cheveux de lin (The girl with flaxen hair) 



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