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Help: Pentatonic Tunes
Related thread:
pentatonic songs (49)
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Subject: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST,guest Date: 12 Feb 02 - 10:51 PM Can anyone help me with a list of tunes written in the Pentatonic scale? Well-known ones would be most helpful. Thanks in advance! |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Uncle Jaque Date: 12 Feb 02 - 11:12 PM I heard an interesting show on PBS once - i think it was "Schickelie's Mix", where he expounded on the subject of the pentatonic scale, and mentioned a few songs that were written for it. I can't remember now, but think that "Amazing Grace" was one of them, much to my surprise.
Perhaps you can go to the NPBN Website (National Public Broadcasting) and see if they have an archive site for Peter Schickelie (I'm not at all sure about the spelling). He's a really entertaining, as well as educational Musician.
Our Daughter has two Indian "Love-flutes", one of which we made and one she bought from a Maine Artisan, both of which are five-holers, and I assume pentatonic. She makes some lovely, haunting music on them, and can imitate many wild bird calls, including the loon, and incorporate them into her music. I'm not all that familiar with the scale, but would like to learn more about it and perhaps try composing in it.
Thanks for asking, and I'll be keeping track of this thread for a while in hopes of learning with you. We have quite a few very knowledgeable Musicians in here and I have little doubt but that we will soon be amply edified! |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST Date: 12 Feb 02 - 11:22 PM Several Scots ones in ABC notation on Jack Campin's website. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Uncle Jaque Date: 12 Feb 02 - 11:30 PM Oh, that's right; a lot of traditional & ancient Celtic music is pentatonic, now that you mention it. Could we have a link to that site you mention? it looks interesting indeed, and thanks for the lead! |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: dick greenhaus Date: 12 Feb 02 - 11:47 PM You can start off with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST Date: 12 Feb 02 - 11:56 PM Jack Campin's website See Modes file for pentatonics.
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST,Bardford Date: 12 Feb 02 - 11:58 PM Here's Jack Campin's site Cheers, Bardford |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Steve Parkes Date: 13 Feb 02 - 03:34 AM If you're old enough to remeber, "Champion The Wonder Horse" is pentatonic (the theme song, not the horse!), all except for one naughty note in the chorus. Steve |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 13 Feb 02 - 03:43 AM Auld Lang Syne Wilfried |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST,Pied piper Date: 13 Feb 02 - 07:18 AM Hi GUEST guest Lots of tunes for Highland pipes are pentatonic,in fact the scale of the pipes seens to be designed to play three different five note scales and the assosiated modes. If you enter "pipe tunes" in your search engine you should bump into plenty. PS there is a good link to the hole topic of bagpipe modes but I don't know how to attach it, HELP PLEASE. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Grab Date: 13 Feb 02 - 07:46 AM The main riff in "Boom Boom" by John Lee Hooker. The "Layla" riff is almost pure pentatonic (IIRC there's one note that isn't). Graham.
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: wysiwyg Date: 13 Feb 02 - 08:02 AM A lot of Negro spirituals are pentatonic. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Amy Date: 13 Feb 02 - 08:09 AM There are hundreds of folksongs that are pentatonic. A pentatonic scale having 5 notes can come in many varieties.... It can be based on do: do re mi so la It can have the same notes but be extended by having a "so or la" below do, or a high "do", an octave above. ie: Great Big House in New Orleans ie: (extended Do pentatonic) Cumberland Gap, Little Black Bull, The Devil's Questions... Then you can also have pentatonic scales ending (and or starting on): re: (has the same do re mi so la but "re" is the tonic) ie. "Shady Grove" is "re pentatonic" (if it had a "fa or ti" it would be in the Dorian mode) So pentatonic: same as above (with fa or ti it would become Mixolydian) ie. "The Darby Ram" La pentatonic: same as above (with fa or ti it would become Minor) ie. The Bird's Courting Song (Leatherwinged Bat) Pentatonic scales based on "fa and mi" are much more rare in American folk music. I collect folksongs according to these particular scales and use them as the basis for teaching in my music classroom (using the Kodaly approach). There are many books that sort folksongs and give a quick reference for pentatonic songs. If you are interested in songs that can be used for children that are pentatonic, let me know, and I can direct you to some good books.
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Snuffy Date: 13 Feb 02 - 08:11 AM Bugle calls are pentatonic. And 'Da-Doo-Ron-Ron' gets by with only 3 notes (G, A & B if you're in the key of G) WassaiL! V |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: wysiwyg Date: 13 Feb 02 - 08:18 AM Amy, I think your post on modes is the most concise and clear I have ever seen. Perhaps someone can dig up the old threads on modes and make a clicky in one of them, to her post here. VERY good. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Murray MacLeod Date: 13 Feb 02 - 08:41 AM Amy, are you sure Shady Grove is "re pentatonic?" I am only familiar with Doc Watson's version and my ears hear it as having la as the tonic. The tune as I think I know it goes
la, la, la,-,re, ti, <so,-, la, la, do, re, mi.- Murray |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Amy Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:10 AM Murray, In reply to your thread concerning Shady Grove. The version I was refering to was sung by Jean Ritchie. It is in the key of G but really it is in "d" since there are no "c's" to be sharped. r r r r r m r d Cheeks as red as a bloomin' rose r r r m s l Eyes of the deepest brown, l d' d' l l s m r d You are the darlin' of my heart, r m m s m r Stay till the sun goes down. r r r m r r d Shady Grove, my little love, r r m s l Shady Grove, I know. d' d' l s m r d Shady Grove, my little love, r m m s m r Bound for the Shady Grove. (D' is for high do) |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Murray MacLeod Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:27 AM Amy, I will have to dig out my old Doc Watson tape and a listen to it again. The version you give as sung by Jean Ritchie certainly sounds the real thing, and my memory of what Doc does could well be faulty. I seem to hear him singing r r r f s l Eyes of the deepest brown But, as I say, my memory could be playing tricks. Murray |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:36 AM Normal pentatonics are derived from normal 'Greek' modes by dropping notes. There are 5 of them, pi 1, pi 2, pi 3, pi 4, and pi 5. (Jack Campin doesn't use this Bronson notation.) The positions of the gaps in the scales are shown in the file on Modes at www.erols.com/olsonw. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Deckman Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:43 AM A good way to remember the Pentonic scale is to just play the black keys on a piano. I remember that the movie song sung by Jane Russell was Pentonic: East is East and West is West, and the wrong one I have chose .... BUTTON and BOWS. Weird, eh? Bob |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Murray MacLeod Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:58 AM Bob, I have to disagree. The last line of Buttons and Bows goes s d l d t d r d. "Rings and things and buttons and bows" In other words if you sing the tune in the key of C there is a B note in "Buttons" in the above line, which precludes it from being pentatonic. Murray |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 10:16 AM The black keys on the piano only give the pi 1 pentatonic scale (which is, however, the most common normal pentatonic mode). |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST,GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 12:40 PM The PRI radio program someone else referred to above is "Gin and Pentatonic", from Schickele Mix. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST,SlickerBill Date: 13 Feb 02 - 12:57 PM This is interesting stuff; didn't realize folk music used the pentatonic scale to this extent. I used the pentatonic scale to teach myself how to play blues. I didn't realize it at the time, but I basically learned the pentatonic scales up and down the neck and used that to begin to improvise. It's basicallythe "blues box". It gets pretty limiting after awhile, but that provides a basis for things, and then you go on to learn other scales; just add on notes til you can do what you want. I use it to teach improvisation because it's kind of basic and easy to learn, like tetris on the neck. Great thread. SB |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Murray MacLeod Date: 13 Feb 02 - 03:46 PM Amy, looking at Shady Grove again, I am wondering why you would have re as the tonic note. Any time I hear a melody which is minor in feel I automatically think of the tonic note being la. In this case the tune would become: l l l l l t l s, Cheeks as red as a bloomin' rose l l l t r m Eyes of the deepest brown, m s s m m r t l s, You are the darlin' of my heart, l t t r t l Stay till the sun goes down. There may well be a very good formal musical reason why you wouldn't notate it thus. I acquired at a very early age the ability to convert any tune into tonic sol-fa instantaneously, but probably didn't do enough formal studying. I used to amuse myself by taking various tunes and singing them in tonic sol-fa, using each note of the scale as the tonic note in turn. Well, there wasn't any television where I grew up .... Murray |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 04:52 PM In the file COMBCODE.TXT at www.errols.com/olsonw you can find sources of normal pentatonic tunes as follows: pi 1 / mode# = 330, 100 tunes There are also abnormal 5 note tunes. The program there can find the number of notes and scale of any of the 6500+ tunes coded in the file.
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Mark Cohen Date: 13 Feb 02 - 05:24 PM I heard just a bit of that particular Schickele Mix program. First Jean Ritchie doing a traditional Appalachian ballad, then a Hawaiian chant. Only on Schickele's show! By the way, I always remember the common pentatonic scale (the "black key" scale, I now know it's called pi 1) by singing the first five notes of the old classic "Louise": "Ev'ry little breeze [seems to whisper Louise]", or of the Irving Berlin song "Always": "I'll be loving you [always]". Aloha, Mark |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 05:36 PM Sorry, I was wrong about piano black keys being pi 1 pentatonic mode. Mode depends on which key is the basis for the scale. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Burke Date: 13 Feb 02 - 05:49 PM All those "pi" modes can be played on the black keys of the piano. You just start in a different spot.
Pi1 begin on 1st of the 3 black keys together |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST Date: 13 Feb 02 - 05:50 PM Tunes on piano black keys only Keynote = C#/Db, mode = pi 2
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: John in Brisbane Date: 13 Feb 02 - 06:26 PM Here's a list to keep you going which I had posted to a larger thread a couple of years ago.
PENTATONIC SONG BOOK (VOLUME 1)
Birds' courting song
Alister MacAlpine's lament
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Murray MacLeod Date: 13 Feb 02 - 08:46 PM Just on first glance, Leezie Lindsay and Skye Boat Song are not pentatonic, each makes use of six notes. Canadee-I-O, as I know it, isn't pentatonic either, but there may be other versions which are. Murray |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:29 PM HEre are some of the other threads covering Pentatonic Songs, and or what Pentatonic/Modal/Modes Pentatonic Songs |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Uncle Jaque Date: 13 Feb 02 - 09:32 PM Correct me if im wrong... but I think that one of the instruments I frequently take to reenactments is "Pentatonic"; the Bugle! |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: ketzlma Date: 30 Mar 03 - 09:41 PM Hello Brian Brocklehurst and all Orff teachers, for whom pentatonic songs are bread. "Shortnin' Bread," despite its ethnic connections is often the first song kids can sing and pick up immediately. The AA' pattern is appealing, they try at home on the black keys and come roaring in playing it the next day! Many playground chants (ball bouncers, jump rope) as well as Swing Low Sweet Chariot fit the scale, as do spontaneous improvisations. VERY best of the lot? Bright Morning Stars are Shining How Can I Keep From SInging? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: toadfrog Date: 30 Mar 03 - 10:20 PM Admitting I'm musically untrained, I ask how useful is it, practically, to look at scales or "modes" on the basis of the white note or place on the clef they begin with? If I am mistaken, I would appreciated being set straight, but it appears to me that Bronson's theory is that is more helpful to start on the assumption that all the scales begin on the same note. That way it is easier to hear the characteristic differences in sound. It is also much easier for untrained people like me, who don't normally think in terms of white keys, to grasp. Thus: Major key = Ionian scale With flatted 7th = Mixolydian With flatted 3d = Dorian With flatted 6th = Aeolian, or melodic minor With flatted 2d = Phrygian With flatted anything further = scales no one ever uses (Locrian and Lydian). I do not even believe I know any songs in the Phrygian scale. I have picked out Bessie Belle and Mary Grey, over and over, on the fingerboard of my guitar, and it always comes out Aeolian, or Minor. For sure, I may be missing something, but if so, what? Bronson's pentatonic scales all correspond to one of the above 7-tone scales, without the tones which distinguish it from adjacent scales. Thus Pi 1= Ionian, without the 4th and 7th (and sounds Scottish or Appalachian, or Chinese Pi 2 = Mixolydian, without the 7th and 3d (and sounds Irish) and so on around. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Nigel Parsons Date: 31 Mar 03 - 03:30 AM I seem to recall the theme to "Wagon Train" was pentatonic Nigel |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: greg stephens Date: 31 Mar 03 - 08:21 AM Toadfrog: the Phrygian mode is rare, but not unknown in the English tradition..though it is incredibly common in Spain, for example. And there are also minor tunes with a variable second(eg Queen of Hearts and the Northern Lass)ie they veer between the Aeloian and Phrygian mode. I recorded an album of NW English tunes once, entitled "The Beggar Boy of the North"...the title track is a Phrygian tune. It's worth mentioning, of course, that not all songs end on the keynote of the scale, so assigning of tunes to modes can be very arbitrary. A tune that only consists of white notes on the piano, and ends on an E, would be a case in point. It would be a matter of opinion in some cases whether this was a Phrygian tune ending on its keynote, or a common or garden major tune ending on the third, or indeed an Aolian tune ending on the fifth. You would have to go by the "feel" of the tune to decide, and that is obviously an area where musicians might not agree. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Callie Date: 31 Mar 03 - 08:22 AM The instrumental bit in Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster" and the verses of the Beatles' "Don't Bring Me Down" are pentatonic. Oh, and also most of Yoko Ono's "Waking on Thin Ice" |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Jim McLean Date: 31 Mar 03 - 09:24 AM There's an interesting, but rather long, article in Johnson's Musical Museum concerning the song 'Ye banks and braes o'Bonnie Doon'. basically Burns explains the origin of the tune he used ' .....A good many years ago, Mr James Miller, .....expressed an ambition to write a Scots air. Mr Clarke, partly by way of a joke, told him to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord, and preserve some kind of rhythm, and he would infallibly compose a Scots air. Ritson, you know, has the same story of the Black keys.' (Burns alludes to the following passage in Ritson's Historical Essy on Scottish Song, page 102.)....."when I was in Italy it struck me very forcibly that the plain chants which are sung by the friars or priests, bore a great resemblance to some of the oldest of the Scottish melodies ......... About twelve years ago (1782) on trying my Piano-Forte, after tuning, by putting my fingers on the the short keys, avoiding the long ones, it surprised me to hear an agreeable Scottish melody ...... the short keys only, which, in modern instruments, are made of ebony, to distinguish them from the long ones, which are generally made of ivory." Jim McLean |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: greg stephens Date: 31 Mar 03 - 09:34 AM This story, like all stories of the origins of folk tunes, has been disputed. The Stephen Clarke referred to (an Englishman) may well have been joking, and that the "Banks and Braes" tune is in fact only a slight reworking of an earlier(?) English(?) tune "Lost,lost is my quiet". |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Nigel Parsons Date: 31 Mar 03 - 09:42 AM Jim McLean: surely sticking to the 'black notes' on a harpsichord is the same as sticking to the white notes on a piano, you get the key of 'C' (A minor) Nigel |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 31 Mar 03 - 09:52 AM this is getting so complicated, what with everybody talking about modes, do-re-mi and pi, whatever that is. A pentatonic song is one that has five tones in it. They don't have to form a scale or anything else. The popularity of pentatonic tunes has to do with the fact that most people have five fingers on any one hand. Let us say you are making a whistle for a child to play while s/he watches the cows all day. You can tell her to put her hand on a length of bamboo. You cut five holes where her fingers naturally fall, and lo you have a pentatonic flute. It won't be in any known scale, and it can't harmonize with other flutes, but it will play pentatonic tunes and will help stave off insanity while she is alone in the pasture all day (or even all summer.) Or you can write a tune using any five notes of the scales commonly used in "Western" music. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: GUEST Date: 31 Mar 03 - 10:56 AM Nigel Parsons: I was just quoting from anold book! Jim McLean |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: greg stephens Date: 31 Mar 03 - 11:59 AM Guest leenia: I think your theory of a five hole whistle played with the five digits of one hand sounds a bit suspect. Covering five holes using one hand on a whistle or flute seems to me a seriously awkward thing for a small child to do: even when you've figured out that one of the holes needs to be round the back. I dont think that would have proved a popular way to make music. And another practical reason why I'm unconvinced: if you make five holes in a whistle, and master the art of playing it with the digits of one hand, you'll then find that a five-holer plays six notes. So you will have invented hexatonic music! |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Burke Date: 31 Mar 03 - 05:07 PM A Pentatonic tune is just 5 tones, so using just the black keys on the piano is one way to explore them. What a pentatonic scale lacks is semitones. In that all white key example, you'd never use both of the white keys that are adjacent in the same tune. The Ionian/Aeloian/Dorian/Mixolydian, etc. distinctions become pretty meaningless. Omit a 7th entirely from an otherwise major tune & you can't call it Ionian or Mixolydian. Thus Pi 1= Ionian, without the 4th and 7th (and sounds Scottish or Appalachian, or Chinese Pi 2 = Mixolydian, without the 7th and 3d (and sounds Irish) and so on around. You can with equal precision say: Pi 1= Mixolydian, without the 4th and 7th Pi 2= Ionian, without the 7th and 3d |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: toadfrog Date: 31 Mar 03 - 10:20 PM O.k. Burke, and what does it mean to say a scale "lacks semitones"? Does it mean, "if you have a scale with only five notes in it, it is uneconomical to have two of those tones only a single tone apart"? Is a tune with only 5 tones, two of which are only a single half tone apart, a theoretical impossibility? Mind you, I'm a musical illiterate; I'm just asking. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Callie Date: 31 Mar 03 - 11:16 PM Toadfrog: Sit at a piano and play CD FGA that's a pentatonic scale. If you play anything in between, including sharps and flats, it's no longer pentatonic. good luck Callie |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Burke Date: 01 Apr 03 - 07:44 PM toadfrog, I find that we all have different kinds of filters that help us make sense of these things. I'll go back to your original examples in hopes that is makes sense. Because I think sol-fege, I'll also give the scales in do-re-me as an alternate way of sounding the scales, because that's how I make sense of it. It's the location & movement of the semitones that defines these modes you listed. The semitones are always mi-fa and ti-do Major key = Ionian scale Semitones at 3-4 & 7-8 do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do With flatted 7th = Mixolydian Semi tones at 3-4 & 6-7 (your flatted the 7th to move the semitone) sol-la-ti-do-re-mi-fa-sol With flatted 3d = Dorian Semi tones at 2-3 & 6-7 re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do-re With flatted 6th = Aeolian, or melodic minor Semitones at 2-3 & 5-6 la-ti-do-re-mi-fa-sol-la With flatted 2d = Phrygian Semitones at 1-2 & 5-6 mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do-re-mi In both of the Pentatonic examples you gave you've eliminated the 3-4 and 7-8 semi-tones of the Ionian scale and you've eliminated the 3-4 and 6-7 of the Mixolydian scale But you've done it differently, in both the 7 is gone, eliminating the greatly loved leading tone of the diatonic scale. In Pi1 3-4 is skipped by going 3-5; in Pi2 it's omitted by going 2-4 and 6-8. In both there is a gap of 1.5 replacing the semitones. Pi 1= 1-2-3---5-6---8 Pi 1= Ionian, without the 4th and 7th or do-re-mi---sol-la--do Pi 1= Mixolydian, without the 4th and 7th sol-la-ti---re-mi--sol Pi 2= 1-2---4-5-6---8 Pi 2= Mixolydian, without the 7th and 3d or sol-la---do-re-mi---sol Pi 2= Ionian, without the 7th and 3d do-re---fa-sol-la---do Pi 2= Dorian, without the 7th & 3d re-mi---sol-la-ti---re In theory you could have other diatonic or pentatonic scales. Isn't the blues scale one? To have semi-tones in a 5 tone scale you'd have to have 2 step gaps elsewhere in the scale so, probably not. In practice I think the pentatonic scales sometimes reduce the 1.5 gaps by slightly raising or lowering the adjacent tones, but not a full half step. So while you might not have semitones in pentatonic scales you could get 3/4 tones. I've been told Bartok noted this in Hungarian folk music. Staff notation, designed for the diatonic scale can't handle it. Fiddles, fretless banjo's & voices can. I think when people start moving the whole & half tones around they usually end up with scales with more or less notes as well. The 12 tone scale is all semitones & used in modern music. You could also have a 6 note scale of all whole tones. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Pentatonic Tunes From: Burke Date: 01 Apr 03 - 08:00 PM PS. I really think finding a piano & playing all the white or all the black keys would be easier. Jumping the gaps between the sets of black keys, omits the semi-tones. Pentatonic all black Pi 1 (begins on the 1st of the 3 black keys together, f#) Pi 2 (begins on the 1st of the 2 black keys together, c#) Diatonic, all white Ionian-starts on C (white before the 2 black) Mixolydian-starts on G Dorian-starts on D (white between the 2 black) Aeolian-starts on A Phrygian-starts on E (white after the 2 black) |
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