Talk:Pentatonic scale

message: Please, can we have some examples? Like ones we can hear. Or is Wikipedia a text-only medium?
: I have tried to add some MIDI examples. BTW, i have midified the gamelan scale although it is irreducible to chromatic scale ;) Raoul NK (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for audio examples

message: Right, all this wordy stuff is meaningless unless we can hear it. Can we have examples we can hear, please? If Wikipedia has visual media (see it) why can't it have audio media (hear it)? This applies to pretty well any music-related article. (Grendlegrutch (talk) 19:09, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Hear it, please?

message: Another construction, derived from Western European classical music, begins with a major scale and omits the fourth and the seventh scale degrees: a C major scale is {C, D, E, F, G, A, B}. By omitting the F and B, the remaining notes are G flat, A flat, B flat, D flat, and E flat, the notes in the G flat major pentatonic scale. These notes are also the black keys on the piano keyboard. This scale is used for many popular pentatonic songs such as "Amazing Grace", "Auld Lang Syne", and "My Girl".
I don't understand something here.  Perhaps I just don't get it, in which case, never mind.  But... if you omit the 4th and 7th of the C major (F and B, respectively), wouldn't you be left with (C, D, E, G, A) instead of (G flat, A flat, B flat, D flat, and E flat)?  It seems that the demonstration switches from C major to G flat major halfway through.--Lf1033 20:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: this paragraph, under major pentatonic scale

message: Re: "They [anhemitonic pentatonic modes] can also be named by their corresponding diatonic cousins: Ionian pentatonic, Mixolydian pentatonic, Dorian pentatonic, Aeolian pentatonic and Phrygian pentatonic."
Pentatonic Scales for the Jazz-Rock Keyboardist by Jeff Burns, published in 1997 by Hal Leonard of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, uses these terms to refer to the various hemitonic pentatonic subsets of the diatonic scale. It calls, for example, C, E, F, G, B, C the Ionian pentatonic and F, A, B, C, E, F the Lydian pentatonic. The idea is that these are derived as analogues of the anhemitonic pentatonic scale within the diatonic scale--which is itself an extension of the acoustically derived anhemitonic pentatonic scale (in other words, it is also a set of Pythagorean fifths). TheScotch 12:54, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: pentatonic modes

message: I feel that jp2's earlier exile of minor pentatonic to jazz was completely sensible, but only under the assumption that this scale is unique to jazz.  Since (as it turns out), the scale is common to both jazz and Appalachian folk song, I think it ought to be discussed on the pentatonic page after all.  
My source for the existence of minor Appalachian pentatonic songs is Cecil J. Sharp, Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachian Mountains, Oxford University Press, 1932.
I left jazz completely alone, so there's now a bit of redundancy here, which I consider to be beneficial.
Perhaps a koto expert could add a bit on the pentatonic scale for this instrument, thus helping to distinguish the different types of minor?
--Opus33 23:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: jazz

message: From the page: "Deriving the pitches from the major scale leads to a just scale of either {1/1, 9/8, 5/4, 3/2, 5/3} (a 5-limit pentatonic) or {1/1, 9/8, 21/16, 3/2, 7/4} with blue notes of the flatted fourth and flatted seventh."
A flatted fourth is a major third, isn't it? If so, is this meant to be a minor scale with a flatted fourth, or is it a flatted fifth? -- Jim Regan 00:28, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, so it's a flatted fourth in the context of a minor pentatonic then. -- Jim Regan 19:44, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Tuning

message: One sentence and six notes hardly does justice to the blues scale, a major building block of American folk, rock, country, jazz, blues, not to mention George Gershwin and Harold Arlen.  Ortolan88 17:49, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Write more! Hyacinth 19:15, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, it's quite easy to miss too. I'm going to take it out and stubify it. Rico 16:42, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: ...or not. I thought we'd have had <music> tags implemented by now. Can't access Lilypond from here. Rico 16:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Says who? —Keenan Pepper 04:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, at the moment, the article itself says the blues scale is the pentatonic minor scale with an additional note, the blue note. That would be six. Then, the example eliminates the fifth altogether, replacing it with the "augmented fourth". (I've always thought it was universally called a flat fifth, but whatever.) In any case, the fifth is used in all the blues that I've heard. I think the example needs to be corrected. I don't know where people are getting the graphics of the staves, though. --Trweiss 15:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Blues scale

message: afaik, in a the bluesscale is minor scale _plus_ an _additional_ b5.
(I just changed that)
Maybe someone can update the gfx, or tell me I'm wrong.
Tobias (from german wiki)
p.s. so... that would also mean, blues scale isn't a pentatonic, right?
:"Blues scale" is a poorly defined concept: see . There are blue notes, a well-defined concept (though varying in historical usage). But whether the "blues scale" is a modificiation of the minor scale, or of the major scale (with a flatted third degree)—and how many notes it has—varies from teacher to teacher. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:32, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think common usage falls on Tobias's side, but common sense is with Wahoofive. There's no single scale that defines or sums up "blues" as a genre, a tradition or even a technique, but if you pick up a scale book, chances are it will list a thing called "the blues scale" that looks exactly as Tobias describes. Anyway IMHO it has no place in an article on pentatonic scales what with its being, as has already been pointed out, hexatonic. Ornette 16:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blues again 

message: Is it only me or is the following sentence incoherent (aside from being ungrammatical)?
*Only certain divisions of the octave, 12 and 20 included, allow uniqueness, coherence, and transpositional simplicity, and that only the diatonic and pentatonic subsets of the 12 tone chromatic set follow these constraints (Balzano, 1980, 1982).
I'd just cut it, but it sounds like it's trying to say something interesting. Can someone clarify? Ornette 15:59, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is incoherent or hard to understand about it? What's wrong with the grammar? Why would you remove it? Hyacinth 21:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification needed? 

message: I removed the following:
      Another common minor pentatonic is constructed from the scale tones I, II, iii, V, VI.
From the minor pentatonic section because this is the major pentatonic.
Also I changed the scale tones 1,2,3,5,6 listed in the major pentatonic to the more conventional roman numerals
I, II, iii, V, VI. Should scale tones be written in capital or lower case? They are pretty inconsistant in this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.68.142.241 (talk • contribs) .
:No, I think the original author meant the lowercase Roman numerals to mean minor intervals above the tonic, which is a little non-standard because Roman numerals usually refer to chords, but it's definitely not just "inconsistant" [sic]. —Keenan Pepper 04:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  minor mistake 

message: Support. The Mongolian_Scale is essentially the same scale with a different name. --Stephen Burnett 22:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge from Mongolian scale

message: "Please, can we have some examples? Like ones we can hear. Or is Wikipedia a text-only medium?"
:Well ... I uploaded two example MIDI files:  and  .  The problem is, it doesn't look nice when you put it into the page. I guess this is because they are not really image files. I have no idea if that's the way you're supposed to do it, or if you're even supposed to at all. Any advice, anyone? --Stephen Burnett 02:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem now fixed. --Stephen Burnett 18:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Examples

message: Could someone please explain me this passage? Or say it in other words. I don't understand what does "they work well over several chords diatonic to the same key"? "Diatonic to the same key"? What are we trying to do if we substitute something with a note from the pentatonic scale?
*"Pentatonic scales are useful for improvisors in modern jazz, pop, and rock contexts because they work well over several chords diatonic to the same key, often better than the parent scale. For instance, over a C major triad (C, E, G) in the key of C major, the note F can be perceived as dissonant as it is a half step above the major third (E) of the chord. It is for this reason commonly avoided. Using the major pentatonic scale is an easy way out of this problem. The scale tones 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 (from the major pentatonic) are either major triad tones (1, 3, 5) or common consonant extensions (2, 6) of major triads. For the corresponding relative minor pentatonic, scale tones 1, ♭3, 4, 5, ♭7 work the same way, either as minor triad tones (1, ♭3, 5) or as common extensions (4, ♭7), as they all avoid being a half step from a chord tone."
:Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth (talk) 03:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Explanation of a passage

message: It seems to me that the picture of the Yo scale should have the starting note repeated at the end, since the other pentatonic pictures show the starting note at the end. I would do this if I knew how, but I don't Wikidsoup [talk] 19:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There should be some sort of standard or guideline for images of musical scales. See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Music. Hyacinth (talk) 03:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yo scale 

message: If they could be and were put into a single octave, however, they would make a pentatonic scale with these frequency proportions: 1:9/8:5/4:3/2:7/4.
Falsehood implies anything and everything. Please rethink what you're trying to convey and then formulate that in such a way that it makes sense. Shinobu (talk) 10:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As does misunderstanding, or perhaps it implies everything and nothing only to some. What don't you understand about it? Hyacinth (talk) 19:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed sentence because of logic error 

message: Is there a reason why there's no mention of the dorian pentatonic -  I, II, ♭III, V, VI, ( I )  ? ~  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Possecomitatus (talk • contribs) 15:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Dorian Pentatonic

message: "Including, but not limited to" is lawyer-speak and is unnecessary since "including" implies additional items already. --Unimath (talk) 12:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  including, but not limited to 

message: This article reads like it was written by scientists.  Can someone please decipher this?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.247.24.23 (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What, specifically, is hard to understand? Hyacinth (talk) 19:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language 

message: I removed the "refimprove" template from May 2008 calling for additional citations for verification since there is no explanation on this talk page. Hyacinth (talk) 19:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional citations

message: This article is about as exciting as a dead gibbon.
While the technical, academic definition is fine, surely there could be some room for something more human?
When I think pentatonic scale, I think of how amazing it is that pretty much anything played in the pentatonic scale sounds good. That's a major part of what I'd talk about if I were to explain it to someone else. What's the point of music if not to evoke feelings in people?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nevster (talk • contribs) 04:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dryness 

message: :Other popular children's songs are almost pentatonic. For example, the almost-pentatonic nature of the Gershwin lullaby "Summertime", is evident when it is played in the key of E-flat minor. In that key, the melody can be played almost entirely on the black keys of a piano, except just once per verse, where a white key is needed.
This passage sounds awkward. Why is the pentatonic nature evident when played in the key of E-flat minor? The song won't sound any less pentatonic in any other key. . This seems a convoluted way of saying that "in E-flat minor, the song can be played using almost only black keys". It has already been said that the black keys of the piano form a pentatonic scale, but it seems weird to make this fact a criteria for deciding whether a song's scale is pentatonic.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rcaetano (talk • contribs) 10:46, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black keys 

message: "The pentatonic scale is also used on the Great Highland Bagpipe."
The mentioning of Great highland bagpipe on its own here is misleading and can lead to wrong conclusions - the great highland bagpipe has a MIXOLYDIAN scale, written most often to A but actually audibly closer to Bb mixolydian. To say that it "uses pentatonic" scale could be said of the piano as well - you can play a pentatonic scale on the piano - piano nevertheless has quite a bit more than just that. For reasons of avoiding confusion of the scale of the Highland Bagpipe I thus removed the sentence.
91.152.177.51 (talk) 00:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed sentence on the great highland bagpipe 

message: I do not know how to align the pythagorean table. 75.152.126.183 (talk) 22:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table Alignment 

message: Intro comes out saying heptatonic scale originated in Medieval Europe.  Seems dubious to me.  Web search gave no ready confirmation.  I would suspect somewhere East has record of hepta much earlier.  Middle East, Subcontinent, Persia... ? Nissimnanach (talk) 16:41, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a little bit earlier (at least as early as the 18th century BC), and you have got the geography pinned down rather well.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:39, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heptatonic origin 

message: The section "Major pentatonic scale" currently claims that the scale is "complete in terms of tonality." Does anyone know what that's about? I know what tonality is, but I'm not sure what that statement could be referring to. On the one hand, it's possible to create the sensation of changing key in it if you tune it in a way that gives priority to the fifths (such as Pythagorean tuning), but you can also achieve that in scales with less notes. On the other hand, it doesn't offer all the possibilities for functional harmony that we're accustomed to in diatonic music, especially with a larger chromatic scale available, and if that's your criterion for "tonal completeness" than it falls short. I kind of imagine that the author had something else in mind but I'm not sure what it would be. Mesocarp (talk) 02:30, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: My guess is they just meant that all three notes of the major triad were present. If so, useless info. I vote get rid of it. —Wahoofive (talk) 01:04, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

text: Okay, I went ahead and took it out. I wouldn't be surprised if you're right; if you do follow the Pythagorean/circle of fifths approach to constructing it, the major third is the last note to arrive, so maybe they did feel like it was special on that basis. I agree though that if that is what they meant, it doesn't really say much about the scale in any general sense, and there's no citation besides. Mesocarp (talk) 02:07, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Complete in terms of tonality"? 

message: This page is so overdone that it's useless. 104.157.227.172 (talk) 22:05, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  oVERDONE