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Pentatonic scale is built into our DNA

Home › Forums › Music Theory › Pentatonic scale is built into our DNA

  • This topic has 4 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 2 days, 11 hours ago by Michael Krailo.
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    • May 10, 2026 at 4:20 pm #415386
      sunjamr
      Participant

        It seems that humans just naturally “get” the sound of the pentatonic scale. Bobby McFerrin gave us a great demo of how it works:

        Sunjamr Steve

      • May 10, 2026 at 4:45 pm #415398
        charjo
        Moderator

          My 7 mos old granddaughter has recently become quite stable while sitting. My son just sent a video of little Remy responding to “Build Me Up Buttercup” by swaying perfectly in time to the music. That a little human, only just physically capable of such movement, could respond so instinctually to music blew me away.
          Clearly, music is somehow hard wired into us.
          John

        • May 10, 2026 at 5:07 pm #415405
          Michael Krailo
          Participant

            I saw this video not too long ago and while he clearly defined the working key to get them started, the way he led the crowd with his giant piano key jumps on the floor was very clear to most everyone in the audience.

            Go slow and practice correct technique, and your abilities will dramatically improve.

            • May 10, 2026 at 10:09 pm #415439
              sunjamr
              Participant

                What? You think perhaps they were subconsciously cheating? My brain couldn’t tell at all what note he was standing on, just that the note needed to be higher or lower. I’m so dumb you could point to an actual key on the piano and I would not know what note to sing, much less if it were just random spots on a stage.

                Sunjamr Steve

            • May 11, 2026 at 5:49 am #415546
              Michael Krailo
              Participant

                It’s a little deceiving, because he actually sang out three notes of the major scale to start with (1 2 3). But that’s not enough to get the pentatonic scale so he had to sing out the major 6 note when he jumped down to the lower note. So of course anyone can fill in the rest of the scale from that point. There is only one note left that didn’t need any prompting and that was the 5th. The 5th is common to all of the popular scales.

                I didn’t know that it was a Db major pentatonic scale until I checked it on guitar.

                Go slow and practice correct technique, and your abilities will dramatically improve.

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