The pentatonic scale is a musical scale, which has five pitches in each octave. These scales are common and are used in different types of music played in different parts of the world such as Celtic, Hungarian, West African, Jazz, American blues, children’s songs, Greek traditional and rock music. Pentatonic scales are derived from major scales and are variations of the same. If they were to be written in solfege they would appear as follows: - Doh, Re, Mi, Sol, La and High Doh. The only difference between the major scale and the pentatonic scale is that the major scale has two more extra notes that are not found in the pentatonic scale. These notes are “Fa” and “Ti” they have been left out intentionally to create the distinction between the two scales. Basic pentatonic pitching practice involves singing all the seven solfege syllable notes but keep silent on the “fa” and “ti” to feel the effect of leaving these two notes out.
The learner needs to do basic warm-ups before embarking on singing pentatonic scales. Several music websites have practice music that a person can use to practice pentatonic pitching. They offer various variations of singing, which are both challenging but useful to ensure the learner progresses in singing. When practicing on pentatonic pitching a person can use these music websites to check the out some of the problems that are likely to arise, know how to spot any warning signs and work to change any bad habits during practice time. The singer needs to know the semitones and tones to build a great pentatonic progression. Putting together different note patterns or scales in various ways can create feelings of different kinds.
Pentatonic scales start at different points and produce different moods. For example spiritual songs have a distinct “home base” note that the tune comes back to. Where the songs sound more hopeful their notes are most likely “doh”, while the sorrowful sounding home-base note is “la”. A typical example is the song “Swing low sweet chariot” where “coming home” is a “doh”, which has a hopeful sound.On the other hand “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” sounds and create sorrowful moods on the pentatonic scale. A student can listen to more varieties of music and learn to identify those songs that use “doh” and those that use “la”. The student should be able to tell, which are more positive sounding and those that have a sound mournful mood. The student should be able to note various moods and sounds created in different songs. This scale has been used for centuries and continues to be used widely although more music is based on the larger system, which uses seven notes. Most, if not all, music where the pentatonic scale has been used illustrates incredible power and variety.
