THE
INUNDATING PENTATONIC
THE penultimate
scale choice
Scientific evidence has proven that in
every known culture throughout the world, all children at a very early age, mock
one another with a “naw naw naw
naw naw naw”, which translates musically into intervals of a minor 3rd,
a perfect 4th, a major 2nd, and a minor 3rd. This is 3/5’s of the pentatonic scale.
Another even more common truth: all words
for ‘mother’ in every known language start with ‘ma—‘ and drop a minor 3rd
to the 2nd syllable. no
wonder any melody containing the pentatonic immediately acquires comfort,
familiarity, and respect.
The usual definition refers to the black
keys of the piano, or the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th,
& 6th steps of the scale. it’s a lot more than that!: Most of the academy award songs are based, sometimes almost
solely on the Pentatonic (i.e. Henry Mancini’s “THE Days of wine and roses”). Jazz players, such as Wooy Shaw, have
baseD their playing vocabulary on this scale.
great strength and beauty lies in its
ability to be used over so many keys and chords: (i.e. The C pentationic can be
played over a c69 chord, C7, f69, B-flat, and more for upper structure
relationships. a Pentatonic built
off the Dominant tone of a scale (the 5th), can be played over the
chord changes of that key ‘til the cows come home, with all notes always sounding
good.
Pentatonics are used over quartel tone harmony
in modal playing. a ‘c’ (or
any other) Pentonic can be played over almost any quartel chord because of its ambiguity: the same quartel chord can keep repeating under a
continuing chromatic flow of Pentatonics; or one pentatonic can be played over a
chromatic flow of quartel chords (Used when a player is said to play/go ‘outside’
the key of the changes/chords): We
might say it’s extremely democratic----liberal!?
I’ve written these scales in c major; but
of course know that you must transpose the material to all 12 keys as you practice.
superb
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