Pentatonic Scale ? Why ?

[protectionist]

I keep hearing raves from rock music authors about the Pentatonic scale. I'm a bit puzzled about this.

I play songs in major scale, that are supposed to have been played in pentatonic scale by top guitarists, (Clapton, Hendrix) and I like my style fine.

For one thing, a pentatonic has only 5 notes, wheras a major scale has 7. So there's supposed to be something good about playing less notes ?

Seems to me with less notes, you have less music. I want my songs to be MORE musical, not less.

 

[BULLDOG]

wow. You understand it's not a matter of more notes being better, don't you? It's about the interaction of the notes between each other. It'll all make sense to you after you have played a little longer.

 

[the other mike]

I keep hearing raves from rock music authors about the Pentatonic scale. I'm a bit puzzled about this.

I play songs in major scale, that are supposed to have been played in pentatonic scale by top guitarists, (Clapton, Hendrix) and I like my style fine.

For one thing, a pentatonic has only 5 notes, wheras a major scale has 7. So there's supposed to be something good about playing less notes ?

Seems to me with less notes, you have less music. I want my songs to be MORE musical, not less.

You might get something out of this.

 

[MarathonMike]

I think the primary reason it's so popular in rock music is it's relative simplicity. After all, you can play a fair amount of rock music if you learn how to play 3 chords in a 1-4-5 progression.

 

[protectionist]

wow. You understand it's not a matter of more notes being better, don't you? It's about the interaction of the notes between each other. It'll all make sense to you after you have played a little longer.

Lol. I hope this doesn't floor you, but I've been playing for 58 years. I've been playing 4 instruments professionally since the mid 70s, and I teach 3 of those instruments with 3 different music schools.

As for the interaction of notes, can you say how the "interaction" achieved with a pentatonic scale cannot be achieved with a major scale ? It would seem to be just the reverse of that.

 

[the other mike]

And this.

 

[BULLDOG]

wow. You understand it's not a matter of more notes being better, don't you? It's about the interaction of the notes between each other. It'll all make sense to you after you have played a little longer.

Lol. I hope this doesn't floor you, but I've been playing for 58 years. I've been playing 4 instruments professionally since the mid 70s, and I teach 3 of those instruments with 3 different music schools.

As for the interaction of notes, can you say how the "interaction" achieved with a pentatonic scale cannot be achieved with a major scale ? It would seem to be just the reverse of that.

Yes, there are several scales with much more than 5 or 7 notes. A guy named Partch came up with one that had 43 divisions per octave. I was commenting on your remark about having more notes available meaning you could make more music. That is just silly.

 

[norwegen]

I like the minor pentatonic; the scale shapes are easy to learn on the guitar.

 

[dblack]

wow. You understand it's not a matter of more notes being better, don't you? It's about the interaction of the notes between each other. It'll all make sense to you after you have played a little longer.

Lol. I hope this doesn't floor you, but I've been playing for 58 years. I've been playing 4 instruments professionally since the mid 70s, and I teach 3 of those instruments with 3 different music schools.

As for the interaction of notes, can you say how the "interaction" achieved with a pentatonic scale cannot be achieved with a major scale ? It would seem to be just the reverse of that.

In other words, "No, I do not understand that."

 

[the other mike]

Is it harder for a guitar player to learn keyboards or
the other way around ?

 

[protectionist]

I think the primary reason it's so popular in rock music is it's relative simplicity. After all, you can play a fair amount of rock music if you learn how to play 3 chords in a 1-4-5 progression.

Yes, and the same is true of Bluegrass. But we're talking about melody here (notes), not chords.

I think you are on the right track about "simplicity,". By diluting their melodies, and removing 2 notes, riffs are easier to play. This might be desirable for some, but I can't see eliminating very useful notes.

In some songs & tunes, the half step interval is necessary to play the verse melody. Example: where would the song "Summertime" (Gershwin-Porgy & Bess) be without the C to B passage ("cotton is high") ?

It looks like the pentatonic can only be used for solos, but often without staying true to the verse melody.

 

[protectionist]

Is it harder for a guitar player to learn keyboards or
the other way around ?

I wouldn't know. I'm not a keyboarder.

 

[protectionist]

wow. You understand it's not a matter of more notes being better, don't you? It's about the interaction of the notes between each other. It'll all make sense to you after you have played a little longer.

Lol. I hope this doesn't floor you, but I've been playing for 58 years. I've been playing 4 instruments professionally since the mid 70s, and I teach 3 of those instruments with 3 different music schools.

As for the interaction of notes, can you say how the "interaction" achieved with a pentatonic scale cannot be achieved with a major scale ? It would seem to be just the reverse of that.

In other words, "No, I do not understand that."

I don't need "other words". I just stated my opinion of the use of the pentatonic scale - laziness.

 

[protectionist]

wow. You understand it's not a matter of more notes being better, don't you? It's about the interaction of the notes between each other. It'll all make sense to you after you have played a little longer.

Lol. I hope this doesn't floor you, but I've been playing for 58 years. I've been playing 4 instruments professionally since the mid 70s, and I teach 3 of those instruments with 3 different music schools.

As for the interaction of notes, can you say how the "interaction" achieved with a pentatonic scale cannot be achieved with a major scale ? It would seem to be just the reverse of that.

Yes, there are several scales with much more than 5 or 7 notes. A guy named Partch came up with one that had 43 divisions per octave. I was commenting on your remark about having more notes available meaning you could make more music. That is just silly.

But those scales are not within the scope of this thread. And having 7 notes as opposed to 5 making more music is not silly. It is something we musicians KNOW, and apparently you don't.

 

[the other mike]

But those scales are not within the scope of this thread. And having 7 notes as opposed to 5 making more music is not silly. It is something we musicians KNOW, and apparently you don't.

Like using a lot of bends and wrist tremelo the way Gary Moore and Stevie Ray Vaughan played.
Gary used to use 16th-note triplets in his hammer-on/pull-offs and that Django 'forkball stretch' between his index and middle fingers especially descending the minor pentatonic scale super fast.

 

[protectionist]

But those scales are not within the scope of this thread. And having 7 notes as opposed to 5 making more music is not silly. It is something we musicians KNOW, and apparently you don't.

Like using a lot of bends and wrist tremelo the way Gary Moore and Stevie Ray Vaughan played.
Gary used to use 16th-note triplets in his hammer-on/pull-offs and that Django 'forkball stretch' between his index and middle fingers especially descending the minor pentatonic scale super fast.

There are literally thousands of songs that could not be played with a 5 note diatonic scale. Same thing applies to tunes.

 

[MarathonMike]

I think the primary reason it's so popular in rock music is it's relative simplicity. After all, you can play a fair amount of rock music if you learn how to play 3 chords in a 1-4-5 progression.

Yes, and the same is true of Bluegrass. But we're talking about melody here (notes), not chords.

I think you are on the right track about "simplicity,". By diluting their melodies, and removing 2 notes, riffs are easier to play. This might be desirable for some, but I can't see eliminating very useful notes.

In some songs & tunes, the half step interval is necessary to play the verse melody. Example: where would the song "Summertime" (Gershwin-Porgy & Bess) be without the C to B passage ("cotton is high") ?

It looks like the pentatonic can only be used for solos, but often without staying true to the verse melody.

Yes I didn't mean to say the 3 chord progression and pentatonic scale were linked. Only that they are both simplified forms that lend themselves well to musically simple songs.

 

[Chuz Life]

I play only by ear (self taught for the most part.)

This whole thread is informative.

Thanks.

 

[badger2]

The thread's question is based on the eternal redundancy of the chromatic scale. We have already shown this in the evolution of the saxophone thread. Choosing either 5 or 7 notes is still based on this redundancy. What one is working with are intervals, and if a good musician knows what to leave out, OP is still correct with more notes, though depending on the (chord being played [italics]). The game is played out via this master sequence: C C# D E Eflat E F F# G Aflat A Bflat B. One bases all known chords on these root notes, and the chord type is simply (the interval pattern [italics]), which is a comparable pattern to the pentatonic scale (= hemitonic and anhemitonic scales).

The question as to which is more difficult to learn, guitar or keyboard has more than one answer. The learning curve itself is now being mutated with the development of amino acid music. An example is Sherinian (post #10) using the pitch wheel on the synth and both hands to work the keyboard. Both can be done on the electric sax (including chords) to play the synth. In our set-up, operating the pitch wheel is done with the foot. One who is experienced on sax can go just as fast as Sherinian can.

 

[the other mike]

The thread's question is based on the eternal redundancy of the chromatic scale. We have already shown this in the evolution of the saxophone thread. Choosing either 5 or 7 notes is still based on this redundancy. What one is working with are intervals, and if a good musician knows what to leave out, OP is still correct with more notes, though depending on the (chord being played [italics]). The game is played out via this master sequence: C C# D E Eflat E F F# G Aflat A Bflat B. One bases all known chords on these root notes, and the chord type is simply (the interval pattern [italics]), which is a comparable pattern to the pentatonic scale (= hemitonic and anhemitonic scales).

The question as to which is more difficult to learn, guitar or keyboard has more than one answer. The learning curve itself is now being mutated with the development of amino acid music. An example is Sherinian (post #10) using the pitch wheel on the synth and both hands to work the keyboard. Both can be done on the electric sax (including chords) to play the synth. In our set-up, operating the pitch wheel is done with the foot. One who is experienced on sax can go just as fast as Sherinian can.

Jordan Rudess was probably the first one I was aware of using the pitch wheel
in the 90's, or was it around before then ?
This bass thing Marco has going on is kinda cool.