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Internet Message Format | 1999-11-04 | 8KB

From: Mnauel Navarro <[e-mail]>
Subject: (andina) Pentatonic scales
Date: 02 Nov 1999 15:31:08 -0700

Anyone have some comments about this subject?
Manuel.

>Envelope-to: [e-mail]
>From: "Patricia Reesby" <[e-mail]>
>To: <[e-mail]>
>Subject: Pentatonic scales
>Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 21:02:46 +1300
>X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
>X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
>
>I would like to know the basis or rationale for pentatonic scales.
>
>The octave has a logical explanation -  like the natural division of a
monochord, but on what is the pentatonic based?  I suppose I'm just dumb but
it's hard for me to get to grips with.  I find it interesting that folk
music all over the world often uses this scale, and the Chinese -  a very
old civilisation -  use it too.  Can one assume that it is much older than
the diatonic?  I am fascinated by numbers and the metaphysical meanings
attached to them.  How the ONE is divided up is the key to everything in
nature and the processes of growth.   I note that the pentatonic scale can
be played on an ordinary 12 key or octave based keyboard, so how come only
five notes?
>
>
>Pat Reesby
>59 Sunshine Av, Karori, Wellington 6005
>New Zealand            (Phone [phone])
>
>
>
>Duin do bheul agus dannsa
>("Shut up and dance")


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From: Mnauel Navarro <[e-mail]>
Subject: (andina) test,,,don't read!!
Date: 02 Nov 1999 18:48:00 -0700

testing.


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From: Holly Wissler <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (andina) Pentatonic scales
Date: 03 Nov 1999 07:50:33 -0800 (PST)

I have been silent for a long time, but loved your question about the
pentatonic scales...and would love to hear feedback on it too.

Holly Wissler
(out here at the Univ. of Idaho...)



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From: [e-mail] (Marcelo Villacres [ESRI-Redlands])
Subject: (andina) The Pentatonic Scale
Date: 04 Nov 1999 07:43:27 -0800

It is said, that in the beginning, after Viracocha had blown the breath of
life into Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, they set their home at the edge of the
Titicaca Lake. There they gave birth to a girl of black eyes, they named her
Taki. One day Taki let her first sounds in the form of a song, a song that
rose towards the wara waras, the stars, and lifting one hand she spread her
fingers in front of her eyes, over and over she repeated the word phesqa...
cinco... five... And so pentatonic music was born.

Well... you won't find that part of the Andean Genesis anywhere but here...
for I just made it up.

Indeed, pentatonic music is found in such distant lands as Scottland, Tibet,
China, Australia, and pre-columbian America. What is important to note (no
pun intended) is that not all share the same scale. Not only do they have
different roots but the intervals are not the same for all. Westernized
pentatonic scales are defined by consecutive fifths or fourths and the
harmonization tends to be based on pedal points on the presumed tonic and
dominant. A typical pentatonic scale would be played on the black keys of a
piano, but, for example, a common Japanese modal pentatonic scale has a
semitone that cannot be reduced to a black key.

I don't know if the pentatonic scale predates the diatonic scale, or even if
there may have been other earlier scales that have been long lost. If we
subscribe to the idea that humans, in their relentless effort to simplify
our existance complicate our lives, then maybe the pentatonic scale may have
come before the diatonic scale. The pentatonic scale does lend itself for
improvisation and perhaps it was developed as a result of improvising simple
melodies. And maybe, one of our early human ancestors held a hand to the
heavens and counted five fingers and improvised the first song to the Gods
in the heavens.

Marcelo

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From: "Angel Sampedro del Rio" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: (andina) The Pentatonic Scale
Date: 05 Nov 1999 20:05:20 -0300

Very interesting, Marcelo.
I paste bellow a recent e-mail from Monty Levenson, a great shakuhachi
maker, which I found interesting.
Notice how similar this flute could be to an actual quena! (he don't mention
anything about embouchure, but I think it was transverse)
Someone told me that in an early expedition to Everest, a British alpinist
heard the song of a bird which reproduced a major scale. I don't know if is
true or not, but it could be a natural aproach to the diatonic.
Anyone knows something similar about the pentatonic?
And, Anyone knows a good reference of an ancient quena pentatonic scale?
Angel-Argentina
[e-mail]
http://usuarios.arnet.com.ar/bambu/


>From: "Monty H. Levenson" <[e-mail]>
>
>Odd music indeed! The work of an ancient colleague unearthed:
>
>Chinese archeologists have unearthed what is believed to be the oldest
>known playable musical instrument, a seven-holed flute fashioned 9,000
>years ago from the hollow wing bone of a large bird.
>
>The instrument, about nine inches long, is the best preserved of six intact
>flutes found with fragments of about 30 others at Jiahu, a remarkably rich
>but little-known archeological site in the Yellow River valley in Henan
>Province in central China. Radiocarbon dating shows the site was occupied
>for 1,300 years beginning around 7000 B.C., during the early Neolithic
>period in China.
>
>Nine millennia after lips last touched it, the flute was played again and
>its tones analyzed. The seven holes produced a rough scale covering a
>modern octave, beginning close to the second A above middle C. There is
>evidence that the flute was tuned: a small hole drilled next to the seventh
>hole had the effect of raising that hole's tone from roughly G-sharp to A,
>completing the octave.

-----Mensaje original-----
De: Marcelo Villacres [ESRI-Redlands] <[e-mail]>
Para: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Fecha: Jueves, 04 de Noviembre de 1999 12:52 p.m.
Asunto: (andina) The Pentatonic Scale


>It is said, that in the beginning, after Viracocha had blown the breath of
>life into Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, they set their home at the edge of
the
>Titicaca Lake. There they gave birth to a girl of black eyes, they named
her
>Taki. One day Taki let her first sounds in the form of a song, a song that
>rose towards the wara waras, the stars, and lifting one hand she spread her
>fingers in front of her eyes, over and over she repeated the word phesqa...
>cinco... five... And so pentatonic music was born.
>
>Well... you won't find that part of the Andean Genesis anywhere but here...
>for I just made it up.
>
>Indeed, pentatonic music is found in such distant lands as Scottland,
Tibet,
>China, Australia, and pre-columbian America. What is important to note (no
>pun intended) is that not all share the same scale. Not only do they have
>different roots but the intervals are not the same for all. Westernized
>pentatonic scales are defined by consecutive fifths or fourths and the
>harmonization tends to be based on pedal points on the presumed tonic and
>dominant. A typical pentatonic scale would be played on the black keys of a
>piano, but, for example, a common Japanese modal pentatonic scale has a
>semitone that cannot be reduced to a black key.
>
>I don't know if the pentatonic scale predates the diatonic scale, or even
if
>there may have been other earlier scales that have been long lost. If we
>subscribe to the idea that humans, in their relentless effort to simplify
>our existance complicate our lives, then maybe the pentatonic scale may
have
>come before the diatonic scale. The pentatonic scale does lend itself for
>improvisation and perhaps it was developed as a result of improvising
simple
>melodies. And maybe, one of our early human ancestors held a hand to the
>heavens and counted five fingers and improvised the first song to the Gods
>in the heavens.
>
>Marcelo
>
>-
>


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