{"id":10880,"date":"2015-12-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hearandplay.com\/main\/?p=10880"},"modified":"2024-10-14T20:20:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T04:20:51","slug":"pentatonic-voicings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hearplaymain.wpenginepowered.com\/pentatonic-voicings\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifth Day Of Christmas: Five Pentatonic Voicings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pentatonic scale is a very useful scale in music because of its common place in many styles of music across the globe (e.g. – the folk music of China and other Asian countries, Nigeria and other African countries etc.). <\/p>\n

Below is the major pentatonic scale in the key of C:
\n\"pentatonic\"<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s so much emphasis on the melodic potential of the pentatonic scale, this post tends to approach the pentatonic scale from a harmonic perspective.<\/p>\n

The heptatonic<\/i> (seven tone) scale offers harmonic development in thirds (aka- “tertian harmony<\/a>“). The major scale is an example of a heptatonic<\/a> scale. For example, C major scale:
\n\"pentatonic\"<\/p>\n

\u2026can be arranged into thirds:
\n<\/p>\n

In the arrangement above, there are thirds in between every tone of the scale. The following triads are in the scale above,<\/p>\n

C major
\n<\/p>\n

E minor
\n<\/p>\n

G major
\n<\/p>\n

B diminished
\n<\/p>\n

D minor
\n<\/p>\n

If these triads are arranged scale wise, we’ll have:<\/p>\n