pentatonic scales

Seba · September 23rd, 2004, 11:27 AM

Hi, I've been reading and studying pentatonic scales, but I don't really seem to get the idea why they are so special. I realize there are some advantages theory-wise, like avoiding avoid notes on a II-V-I e.g., but I don't seem to get that special tone they are said to have (spacier, fresher,...)? So what's really so important about pentatonic scales, to my ear they don't do anything special...

mother of invention · September 23rd, 2004, 02:03 PM

Sentimental Mood , the melody opens with a pentatonic scale. Asian music is based on pentatonics and you can use pentatonics on blues. The pentatonic scale a minor third up from the key. like in C you would use Eflat pentatonic.

Shade of Blue · September 23rd, 2004, 03:10 PM

If I remember correctly, Olé by Coltrain is based on a pentatonic scale, and it certainly has a unique feel to it.

clave · September 23rd, 2004, 03:23 PM

Japanese folk and classical music is all pentatonic; ditto for some West African pop music -- you might want to get hold of a CD or two by Salif Keita, Oumou Sangare or Habib Koite to check it out. (They're all fom Mali.)

I'm sure you can find MIDI files of some Japanese folk music (like "Sakura, Sakura"). Toshiko Akiyoshi likes to use pentatonic scales in a lot of her big-band pieces, too, though she shifts from Eastern to Western scales and back again in the course of many pieces.

Linus Olsson · September 24th, 2004, 01:33 PM

Coltrane, McCoy, Chick and others started using pentatonics in their solos in the sixties. Listen to some of the recordings from this period and you will notice that there's a specific color in the music while using these scales. There's a special color in any "scale-family", melodic minor, symmetrical diminished, whole-tone...

edrowland · September 25th, 2004, 09:21 AM

I've struggled with pentatonics for a while. Not playing the missing notes has always been a real challenge for me. But, after persisting for a while, I think I'm staring to get it. Why not just play the extra notes when you feel like it is the obvious question.

Pentatonics have an obvious importance in blues. But I'm not a great blues player, so I'll somebody else expound on the place of pentatonic in blues.

But they are also useful in other contexts as well. The characteristic sound of a pentatonic is (to my ear) a very low-tension floaty kind of open sound, that's useful over most non-dominant chords. (Ironically, the place of pentatonics in blues is mostly as scales over dominants). Think of the sound of chords like C6/9, or C6 or C add 9, which not uncoincidentally happens to be composed of notes of a major pentatonic scale. To my ear, those chords capture the "open" sound of pentatonic scales. If you displace the root under the pentatonic scale cluster you can get other interesting sounds too. e.g.

F G A C D over BbMaj13

I've never really ripped apart how I use these pentatonics with displaced roots or whether I use them consistently, but I'm pretty certain they're part of my idomatic soloing vocabulary. The concept definitely plays a very important role in comping for me. I'm pretty sure that I tend to use pentatonics with displaced roots a fair bit over I/vi, or IVmaj chords in the first couple of bars in a phrase, falling back to II/V/I or dominant strategies in the 3rd and 4th bar (loosely speaking). e.g. Over I/vi/ii/V/I: I/vi (pentatonic, low tension) II/IV (high-tension dominant strategy) I (pentanonic, back to low tension). Not that I always play that way. But this is definitely a core vocabulary concept for me.

Certainly, pentatonic scales with displayed roots provide a strategy for making low-tension chords like Imaj7 interesting.

There's actually a generating rule for producing all the useful displaced pentatonic scales over a particular chord. For any given chord there are two or three. Take the modal scale for the chord. If it has an avoid note, drop that, and, find any pentatonic scales that can be constructed from the remaining notes. Each of the resulting scales has an interesting sound.

Example:

Cmaj7. Take the I scale, and drop the F because it's an avoid note, leaving C D E G A B. Out of those notes there are two possible pentatonics: C D E G A (C6/9), and D E G A B (CMaj13). Playing either of these pentantonics over a CMaj chord produces nice results. D dorian: Take the ii scale, there's no avoid note, so all seven notes are good. Choices of pentatonic are: C D E G A , F G A C D, G A B D E. Each of these scales produces a distinct sound over a Dm7.

Not a lot different from playing modes, you might say. But, to my ear, the difference between restricting yourself to notes of a pentatonic scale, rather than using all the notes of the mode is that you get a more "open" sound. By restricting yourself to five notes instead of seven, you reduce the harmonic density to a point that the sound seems to open up. As usual, talking about about musical concepts is a challenge. That's the best I can do. If in doubt, try it, and see if it works for you.

It's a nice sound in moderation. I wouldn't base my entire sound on it, although have heard guitarists who use this concept heavily with good results. For me, it's a way to consistently reduce tension while soloing (or comping), which needs to be balanced with ways to increase tension, like alt scales, #11 voicings, etc.

I'm not entirely sure why, but this concept seems to work well when playing with certain piano players. I *think* it's because some piano players tend to use pairs of fourth or fifth stacks constructed from pentonics when comping. (e.g. from C Major pentatonic (C D E G A), the two fourth stacks are D G C, and E A D, both of which are nice as C6/9, or as extensions over CMaj7).

I've always had the feeling that pentatonics with displaced roots leads to one of those places that you can get to via three or four different approaches (quartic harmony being one of the other ways). Certainly it's no accident that McCoy Tyner uses quartic harmony heavily, *and* uses pentatonic scales heavily when soloing.

Jakeweiser · September 25th, 2004, 01:41 PM

Pentatonics is something that I have been working on lately but mostly as a technical thing but it's creeping into my playing.

Basically it's pretty simple, throwing certain pentatonics in certain harmonic notes can bring you either deep within the key you are in or out to mars. Pentatonics I find are great for sequencing lines since the paterns are quite simple.

Pentatonics are breat for upper extention playing. Playing D pentatonic over a C maj chord will yeild all the extention notes a la tadd dameron for example. Mixing them broken in 3rds and 4ths will give a a very open sounding way around those sorts of chord sounds.

Pents are pretty responsible for a lot of today's jazz sounds along the lines of mentioned artists, Coltrane and McCoy. Since those two particular artists could be considered some of the most influential on their instruments a lot of people start to emulate the sound.

Pentatonics basically to my ears are an easy way to make sense out of sequences to get in and outside of tonality. I had attenended a masterclass with Trombonist Conrad Herwig a few years back and that man knows Pentatonic scales so well that the lecture and post class chat I had with him was mind blowing and only now after figuring out all the other notes/modes/arpegs learning these Pent scales and trying not to sound like SRV.

Ok. That is enough from me

Seba · September 25th, 2004, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edrowland

Not a lot different from playing modes, you might say. But, to my ear, the difference between restricting yourself to notes of a pentatonic scale, rather than using all the notes of the mode is that you get a more "open" sound. By restricting yourself to five notes instead of seven, you reduce the harmonic density to a point that the sound seems to open up.

thanks a lot, that pretty much is what I was looking for. I tried to play some V pentatonic on II-V's this afternoon on a play-along (so e.g. G pentatonic on a II-V in C major), and ik actually now sounded more "open" (fresher) than the first times I heard it. In-sen scales are pretty neat too I found out....
thx everyone! I

edrowland · September 26th, 2004, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seba

thanks a lot, that pretty much is what I was looking for. I tried to play some V pentatonic on II-V's this afternoon on a play-along (so e.g. G pentatonic on a II-V in C major), and ik actually now sounded more "open" (fresher) than the first times I heard it. In-sen scales are pretty neat too I found out....
thx everyone! I

hmm. i don't think that's quite it. Pentatonics really work nicely when you use them in a way that has a good deal of harmonic tension over the root chord. G pentatonic over a G7 is a bit too low-stress, and cliched for my taste. Not that it's a bad choice. Just that Gmaj and Gmin petatonic over the dominant G7 is a very common blues convention, which is something else altogether.

Jake's D major penta over C is a really good example of the kinds of interesting sounds you can get from pentatonics.

Try Gmajor pentatonic over Dm7, G Alt over G7, DMajor penatonic over CMaj7. That's a cool sound based on pentatonics. Listen to the way that DMajor Pentatonic sounds after the G alt. Despite the fact that the DMaj pentatonic should be harmonically really dense over the C I, it ends up having a really nice "open" 6/9-ish kind of sound, even if you lean heavily on the #11 F#.

Linus Olsson · September 27th, 2004, 06:45 AM

I sometimes use pentatonics on II-V-I progressions. Here's one trick wich is easy to apply on the guitar: Dm7 (A minor pentatonic) - G7 (Bb minor pentatonic) - Cmaj7 (B minor pentatonic).
I also use other types of pentatonics like the minor one where the seventh is replaced by a major sixth i.e. in C: C,Eb,F,G and A. This one also works well on a Db maj7#5 chord. If you play it on a F7 chord some would call it "F dominant penta". One very colorful to use on tonic minor chords spells in C: C,D,Eb,G and A.

edrowland · October 1st, 2004, 12:34 AM

One more try. Chromatic is to diatonic as diatonic is to pentatonic. You get a really "open" sound out of pentatonic lines becaues the notes are really far apart. Pentatonics in isolation sound rather tame and uninteresting. But you can get all kinds of interesting effects by playing pentatonics in various relations to the root note. What's especially interesting about pentatonics with displaced roots is that some of them produce very harmonically dense sounds, while still maintaining a melodically open feel.

September 23rd, 2004, 02:03 PM	#2
mother of invention Registered User Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 102	Check out ---- Sentimental Mood , the melody opens with a pentatonic scale. Asian music is based on pentatonics and you can use pentatonics on blues. The pentatonic scale a minor third up from the key. like in C you would use Eflat pentatonic.

September 25th, 2004, 01:41 PM	#7
Jakeweiser www.jakehanlon.com Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada Posts: 4,930	Pentatonics is something that I have been working on lately but mostly as a technical thing but it's creeping into my playing. Basically it's pretty simple, throwing certain pentatonics in certain harmonic notes can bring you either deep within the key you are in or out to mars. Pentatonics I find are great for sequencing lines since the paterns are quite simple. Pentatonics are breat for upper extention playing. Playing D pentatonic over a C maj chord will yeild all the extention notes a la tadd dameron for example. Mixing them broken in 3rds and 4ths will give a a very open sounding way around those sorts of chord sounds. Pents are pretty responsible for a lot of today's jazz sounds along the lines of mentioned artists, Coltrane and McCoy. Since those two particular artists could be considered some of the most influential on their instruments a lot of people start to emulate the sound. Pentatonics basically to my ears are an easy way to make sense out of sequences to get in and outside of tonality. I had attenended a masterclass with Trombonist Conrad Herwig a few years back and that man knows Pentatonic scales so well that the lecture and post class chat I had with him was mind blowing and only now after figuring out all the other notes/modes/arpegs learning these Pent scales and trying not to sound like SRV. Ok. That is enough from me __________________ "I am not in a habit of quoting myself..." - Jake Hanlon Check out my website

September 27th, 2004, 06:45 AM	#10
Linus Olsson Jazz Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: France Posts: 170	I sometimes use pentatonics on II-V-I progressions. Here's one trick wich is easy to apply on the guitar: Dm7 (A minor pentatonic) - G7 (Bb minor pentatonic) - Cmaj7 (B minor pentatonic). I also use other types of pentatonics like the minor one where the seventh is replaced by a major sixth i.e. in C: C,Eb,F,G and A. This one also works well on a Db maj7#5 chord. If you play it on a F7 chord some would call it "F dominant penta". One very colorful to use on tonic minor chords spells in C: C,D,Eb,G and A. __________________ Linus [URL]http://www.linusjazz.com[/URL]

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September 23rd, 2004, 11:27 AM	#1
Seba Registered User Join Date: May 2003 Location: Belgium Posts: 351	pentatonic scales Hi, I've been reading and studying pentatonic scales, but I don't really seem to get the idea why they are so special. I realize there are some advantages theory-wise, like avoiding avoid notes on a II-V-I e.g., but I don't seem to get that special tone they are said to have (spacier, fresher,...)? So what's really so important about pentatonic scales, to my ear they don't do anything special...

September 23rd, 2004, 03:10 PM	#3
Shade of Blue Can't think of a witty title Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Richmond, VA, USA Posts: 511	If I remember correctly, Olé by Coltrain is based on a pentatonic scale, and it certainly has a unique feel to it.

September 23rd, 2004, 03:23 PM	#4
clave Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 7,284	Japanese folk and classical music is all pentatonic; ditto for some West African pop music -- you might want to get hold of a CD or two by Salif Keita, Oumou Sangare or Habib Koite to check it out. (They're all fom Mali.) I'm sure you can find MIDI files of some Japanese folk music (like "Sakura, Sakura"). Toshiko Akiyoshi likes to use pentatonic scales in a lot of her big-band pieces, too, though she shifts from Eastern to Western scales and back again in the course of many pieces.

September 24th, 2004, 01:33 PM	#5
Linus Olsson Jazz Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: France Posts: 170	Coltrane, McCoy, Chick and others started using pentatonics in their solos in the sixties. Listen to some of the recordings from this period and you will notice that there's a specific color in the music while using these scales. There's a special color in any "scale-family", melodic minor, symmetrical diminished, whole-tone... __________________ Linus [URL]http://www.linusjazz.com[/URL]

September 25th, 2004, 09:21 AM	#6
edrowland Guitar Join Date: May 2004 Location: Ottawa, Canada Posts: 896	I've struggled with pentatonics for a while. Not playing the missing notes has always been a real challenge for me. But, after persisting for a while, I think I'm staring to get it. Why not just play the extra notes when you feel like it is the obvious question. Pentatonics have an obvious importance in blues. But I'm not a great blues player, so I'll somebody else expound on the place of pentatonic in blues. But they are also useful in other contexts as well. The characteristic sound of a pentatonic is (to my ear) a very low-tension floaty kind of open sound, that's useful over most non-dominant chords. (Ironically, the place of pentatonics in blues is mostly as scales over dominants). Think of the sound of chords like C6/9, or C6 or C add 9, which not uncoincidentally happens to be composed of notes of a major pentatonic scale. To my ear, those chords capture the "open" sound of pentatonic scales. If you displace the root under the pentatonic scale cluster you can get other interesting sounds too. e.g. F G A C D over BbMaj13 I've never really ripped apart how I use these pentatonics with displaced roots or whether I use them consistently, but I'm pretty certain they're part of my idomatic soloing vocabulary. The concept definitely plays a very important role in comping for me. I'm pretty sure that I tend to use pentatonics with displaced roots a fair bit over I/vi, or IVmaj chords in the first couple of bars in a phrase, falling back to II/V/I or dominant strategies in the 3rd and 4th bar (loosely speaking). e.g. Over I/vi/ii/V/I: I/vi (pentatonic, low tension) II/IV (high-tension dominant strategy) I (pentanonic, back to low tension). Not that I always play that way. But this is definitely a core vocabulary concept for me. Certainly, pentatonic scales with displayed roots provide a strategy for making low-tension chords like Imaj7 interesting. There's actually a generating rule for producing all the useful displaced pentatonic scales over a particular chord. For any given chord there are two or three. Take the modal scale for the chord. If it has an avoid note, drop that, and, find any pentatonic scales that can be constructed from the remaining notes. Each of the resulting scales has an interesting sound. Example: Cmaj7. Take the I scale, and drop the F because it's an avoid note, leaving C D E G A B. Out of those notes there are two possible pentatonics: C D E G A (C6/9), and D E G A B (CMaj13). Playing either of these pentantonics over a CMaj chord produces nice results. D dorian: Take the ii scale, there's no avoid note, so all seven notes are good. Choices of pentatonic are: C D E G A , F G A C D, G A B D E. Each of these scales produces a distinct sound over a Dm7. Not a lot different from playing modes, you might say. But, to my ear, the difference between restricting yourself to notes of a pentatonic scale, rather than using all the notes of the mode is that you get a more "open" sound. By restricting yourself to five notes instead of seven, you reduce the harmonic density to a point that the sound seems to open up. As usual, talking about about musical concepts is a challenge. That's the best I can do. If in doubt, try it, and see if it works for you. It's a nice sound in moderation. I wouldn't base my entire sound on it, although have heard guitarists who use this concept heavily with good results. For me, it's a way to consistently reduce tension while soloing (or comping), which needs to be balanced with ways to increase tension, like alt scales, #11 voicings, etc. I'm not entirely sure why, but this concept seems to work well when playing with certain piano players. I think it's because some piano players tend to use pairs of fourth or fifth stacks constructed from pentonics when comping. (e.g. from C Major pentatonic (C D E G A), the two fourth stacks are D G C, and E A D, both of which are nice as C6/9, or as extensions over CMaj7). I've always had the feeling that pentatonics with displaced roots leads to one of those places that you can get to via three or four different approaches (quartic harmony being one of the other ways). Certainly it's no accident that McCoy Tyner uses quartic harmony heavily, and uses pentatonic scales heavily when soloing.

October 1st, 2004, 12:34 AM	#11
edrowland Guitar Join Date: May 2004 Location: Ottawa, Canada Posts: 896	One more try. Chromatic is to diatonic as diatonic is to pentatonic. You get a really "open" sound out of pentatonic lines becaues the notes are really far apart. Pentatonics in isolation sound rather tame and uninteresting. But you can get all kinds of interesting effects by playing pentatonics in various relations to the root note. What's especially interesting about pentatonics with displaced roots is that some of them produce very harmonically dense sounds, while still maintaining a melodically open feel.