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What is pentatonic scale?

What are some examples of tunes written in a pentatonic scale?

  • My dad just built himself a kalimba, and the keys are tuned to a pentatonic scale. Any suggestions for common tunes that would be playable on it?

  • Answer:

    A lot of Oriental music is based on pentatonic scales. My favorite example is "Arirang," a famous Korean folk song. NY Phil has a rather beautiful recording of it. Perhaps a more familiar example is the American folk song "Amazing Grace," which also uses a pentatonic construct. Here's a version by Elvis. Another interesting example is "Cottoneye Joe," the country-esque song. This is kind of a side note, but here's a video of Bobby McFerrin (of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" fame) showing off the pentatonic scale.

Vidur Sanandan at Quora Visit the source

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"Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise" is an old one.

Harrison Boyle

I Bought Me a Cat Shortnin' Bread Camptown Races And many other folk songs

Howard Levitsky

solo of....Knockin' On Heaven Door...uses minor pentatonic scale

Siddhant Gupta

Both Debussy and Ravel in their Impressionistic music make regular use of pentatonicism, but according to Nicolas Slonimsky in his "Lectionary Of Music", there is strong evidence to suppose that "Londonderry Air" (Danny Boy) was wrongly transcribed.  The whole tune would in fact be pentatonic if instead of the initial minor 2nd below subsequent tonic, it were a minor 3rd. Another example is "Auld Lang syne."

Mark Andrews

The main riff to the Temptations 'My Girl' uses a complete octave of the Major pentatonic on the C chord followed by the sam idea repeated on the F chord. 'Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone' is a good example of the Minor Pentatonic. Fleetwood Mac's 'Black Magic Woman' is another.

Nick Minnion

There are lists of pentatonic songs already on the net. Just Google "pentatonic song lists".

Tracey Edgar

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